


Human

by myinfinitenutshell



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2403143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinfinitenutshell/pseuds/myinfinitenutshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two hundred years ago, Gold split himself in two and imprisoned his faerie self in the Dark Castle. Feeling betrayed and angry, Rumpelstiltskin swears an oath to kill anyone Gold ever loves. When Rumpelstiltskin meets Belle with the intention of killing her, however, he finds himself falling in love as well. </p><p>(Prompt fill for "Dog Days of Summer" on Tumblr. Finally posting here.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rumpelstiltskin crumpled to the floor as another wave of searing pain assaulted his body. He wanted to scream, wanted to wrap his arms around his legs and finally, at long last, succumb. Give in. Give up. Become the puppet that it had always wanted him to be.

But he wouldn’t. Not this time.

Grunting, Rumpelstiltskin forced himself up to his hands and knees, and dragged his rebelling body forward, his nails digging into the soft red fibers of the rug. When he saw his right hand begin to turn a sickly grayish green, the color crawling up his arm, he scrambled for his knapsack and drew out the curvy iron dagger.

_Stop!_

Rumpelstiltskin ignored the high voice in his mind and pressed the dagger to his hand and arm, hissing with pain as the skin boiled and blistered. But the pain of the dagger was nothing compared to the agony that again wracked his body from the inside out. With a hoarse cry, Rumpelstiltskin fell to his back, writhing on the floor.

_I’ll kill you!_

A sour laugh broke from Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth. “Fine,” he gasped out. “Do it! Kill me!”

The attack immediately ceased.

“What?” Rumpelstiltskin staggered up to his feet, shouting at the thing inside him with derisive pleasure. “Too weak? Too cowardly?” Another broken laugh. “I know the feeling.”

Checking to ensure that the skin on his hand was again flesh-colored, not the mottled gray-green of the monster inside him, Rumpelstiltskin gripped the dagger tighter and stumbled toward the mirror. It was covered with a brown sheet. He ripped it off, centuries-old dust leaping to the air and spinning in the pale blue moonlight streaming through the high windows.

“You’ll never be free of me, dearie.”

The voice was high, teasing, and it was coming from the image in the mirror. The creature shared Rumpelstiltskin’s lean build, short stature, and long slightly crooked nose, and both men’s hair brushed the tops of their shoulders. But where Rumpelstiltskin’s skin was flesh, the creature’s was grayish green with flecks of gold. Where his eyes were deep brown, its eyes were reptilian amber. And where his hair was straight and smooth, its was wavy and dirty. This was not Rumpelstiltskin’s outer reflection. It was his inner, the faerie within him fighting to take over once more.

“No matter what you do,” the faerie in the mirror continued, “you’ll never be free. You and I—” he pointed a black talon first at Rumpelstiltskin then at himself “—are one.”

“We are nothing alike!” Rumpelstiltskin spat.

The creature tittered, alien eyes dancing with glee. “Well, it’s clear who between the two of us got the brains!” The image in the mirror crept closer as though to relay a secret, putting one hand to the side of his mouth and whispering, “You and I are everything alike.” He waved his hand and a purple haze swirled about his hand then dissipated to leave behind a king’s coin.

Rumpelstiltskin flinched at the show of magic.

“Two sides—” the creature flipped the silver coin, and it came out of the mirror, arcing and flashing in the full moon’s light before falling into Rumpelstiltskin’s hands “—one whole.”

“I am not you,” Rumpelstiltskin ground out.

“Oh, but we are, dearie. We are.” A satisfied smirk. “One day you’ll realize that.” The smirk faded. “And then you’ll have no one else to blame but yourself, myself, ourselves.”

Rumpelstiltskin flung the king’s coin away and grasped the dagger with both hands, tilting the blade toward his own chest and raising it high above him.

“No!” the creature growled, throwing his hand through the mirror and grabbing Rumpelstiltskin’s arm. The gray-green skin of the faerie began to transfer to Rumpelstiltskin’s skin like a contagion, and Rumpelstiltskin reared back, pointing the dagger at the mirror.

“Get back, demon!” he shouted.

The creature did.

Neither man did anything for a moment. Rumpelstiltskin gasped for breath, hand holding the dagger shaking. The faerie simply stood in his mirror, unnaturally still and so different from his usual frenzied pace and bearing that radiated movement and a restless impatience. It was as though time had ceased.

“You will not survive alone,” the creature finally said in a low voice. “We have enemies.”

“Try me,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

“You won’t have my power.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s fingers twitched. “I don’t care.”

“I will kill anyone you ever love,” the faerie swore.

“You’ve already taken them all!” Rumpelstiltskin suddenly shouted. “I’ve lost everything because of you! My father, my wife, my—” his voice broke “—my Bae.” There were tears in Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes, anguish written in every line of his face. “I lost my boy, my Bae…because of you.” He pointed the dagger at the creature. “And I swore that I’d do nothing else, love nothing else, until I free myself of you and find my son, be it a corpse or living!”

“ _Our_  son,” the faerie hotly corrected. “You and I are one, no matter what you say. The Blue Fairy may have given you a way to keep me at bay, but I’ll never be gone. Never!”

Crippling pain again seized Rumpelstiltskin’s body, and the dagger fell from his limp hand to the floor with a heavy clank. He collapsed to his knees, hands on either side of his head pushing at his temples, trying vainly to hold himself together against the faerie’s onslaught.

With a manic giggle, the faerie started to dance about behind the glass. “You are weak! Do you really think that you can repel me? You cannot turn away from a part of yourself, dearie. You are me! And I am you!”

Hot fire surged just under the skin of Rumpelstiltskin’s right leg, and he tore off his shoe to watch, in terror, as green started taking over his human skin, rapidly moving from his toes to his foot, his ankle to his knee. He twisted around and caught sight of the dagger only six feet away. He squirmed toward it. The faerie fought harder to reassert control.

“Turn your back, but the back is still there!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s entire right leg was burning, and he noticed that the tips of his right hand started to turn as well. Rumpelstiltskin let out a cry of pain, fighting yet another inch closer.

“I am and will always be the stronger of the both of us!”

The color spread up his fingers.

“Without me, you are nothing! Without me, you will be  _human_ ,” the faerie said with a sneer. “Prey to their pity, their rules, their limitations and vulnerabilities.”

“But I will be free!” Rumpelstiltskin snarled, pulling another foot closer then cringing at the punishing pain that rewarded him. His right leg was a swarm of agony, and his entire right hand was now green. “The Blue Fairy—”

“The Blue Fairy lied,” the creature said matter-of-factly, then added in a sing-song voice, “You and me, we be one, you no ever be so free.”

Rumpelstiltskin got his fingertips on the curvy, decorated blade, and the faerie started to pound on the glass.

“No, stop! You can’t do this!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s right hand was completely irresponsive and green started to creep into the pinky of his left hand, but he had enough control left to wrap his weak fingers around the black hilt. He positioned it at his chest. The sweat of his palm made the dagger slippery, and he gripped it tighter with what little strength he had left. Ready, he looked up and met his faerie self’s reptilian eyes.

“For Bae,” he murmured.

And he drove the dagger into his heart.

The mirror shattered. Purple smoke wrapped around Rumpelstiltskin with the angry strength of a cyclone, tearing through his skin, raging through his bloodstream, and stripping every element of the magical from his mind, body, and soul.

Rumpelstiltskin screamed, dagger protruding from his chest, arms outstretched.

The faerie howled.

“Every moon!” it shrieked. “Every moon, you will feel me! You will never escape! You will never be free! You will never, ever be—”

 

With a cry, Rumpelstiltskin shot upright, gasping for breath and fighting to loosen himself from the bed sheets tangled about his legs.

Wait, no. He was Robert Gold now. Not Rumpelstiltskin. And he was in his house, not in the dank halls of the Dark Castle.

And he was human.

Having gotten his bearings, Gold’s mind turned to the next matter demanding to be addressed: his chest was burning. He ripped off his night shirt and saw the black scar over his heart, black lines spreading out across his chest like the deep, strong roots of an oak tree. He clutched the scar, pressing on it, trying to temper his labored breathing.

Even now, two hundred years later to the day, the wound from the dagger still ached. And even now, two hundred years later, he still dreamed of the faerie. Every night, under the unblinking eye of the moon.

Just as the faerie had said he would.

Groaning, fighting to shake off the nightmare, the clinging memory of that night, Gold ran a hand through his sweaty hair and turned when he felt a breeze brush his damp face. A blustery wind had picked up outside, and it was blowing the curtain back and forth, letting in large slices of moonlight into the room.

Gold immediately scrambled out of the bed then tripped to the floor when his right leg hit the bed stand and a flare of paralyzing pain coursed up his leg. Another gust of wind sent the curtain askew, and a streak of the moon’s pale blue light touched his face. Everywhere the light hit, the skin flashed green and burned like flame. Gold cursed, jerking away, and stumbled the rest of the way to the window to close the curtains tight.

Once safe, he leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and sighed.

Two hundred years.

And the faerie had been right: Gold was still not free.

Even as he stood there, rubbing the skin on his face that was flesh-colored once more but still stung, Gold could sense the faerie. He could sense the creature’s restlessness, his rage, the sense of betrayal he nursed. He could feel the faerie’s black hatred of him. And he could feel the boundaries of the Dark Castle closing in on the faerie, suffocating him, imprisoning him there forever.

_Not forever, dearie!_  a high voice rang in Gold’s mind.  _Never forever!_

Gold shuddered and pressed his hand over his scarred heart as he felt the link chaining him to his faerie self twist and pull, writhe and holler. 

Gold was not free. Neither of them were.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumpelstiltskin learns about Belle.

“You own the Caisleán Dorcha?”

Gold was too deep in his own thoughts to process what Belle had said.

The faerie was…restless today. More so than usual. After the nightmare and burning pain of the dagger wound had woke him up at the stroke of midnight, Gold had been unable to get back to sleep. His connection with the faerie was especially strong today, and he could feel the creature prowling at the edges of its prison, demon soul howling and gnashing to get loose, to run rampant through the world and gorge itself on chaos.

Gold shook his head and tried to focus on Belle’s expectant expression. She’d been working for him for two years now in the pawnshop. At first, the job had been temporary when he’d twisted his ankle worse than normal and had needed someone to help him manage the shop. But long after the ankle had healed, she’d kept coming. And he’d let her. Neither of them had ever said anything about her working on a more permanent basis. It had just happened. And he couldn’t find it inside himself to get rid of her. She was…efficient. Gold left the word there, knowing full well that there was too little work needing done in the shop to warrant Belle’s full employment but consciously ignoring that fact.

“I’m sorry, dear,” he said, “what was that?”

She waved the ledger that he’d asked her to check, a new task he’d assigned her only that week yet she was already showing great promise as a bookkeeper for his rentals. At least that gave him one valid reason why he needed her to stick around.

 “You own the Caisleán Dorcha?” Her face was bright, her striking blue eyes gleaming. “The Dark Castle?”

Gold froze. He thought he heard the whisper of a high giggle rush through his mind, thought he felt his chest suddenly burn, and he shivered. Clearing his suddenly dry throat, he asked, “The what, dear?”

“The Dark Castle, you know, the small abandoned castle up on the mountain in the woods,” she explained. “Everyone knows about it. And you—” she lifted the record book that she’d been going over “—own it! I never knew that!”

Gold impulsively leapt up and tore the bound book from her hands, disregarding the flash of pain from his right leg at the hasty movement. The only thought in his mind was that he needed to get her as far away from it as possible.

“This is my personal ledger of properties,” he muttered, shoving it in his desk and pulling another out. He handed it to her. “This is the one I’d intended for you to review. My apologies, Ms. French.”

“Okay,” Belle slowly said, brow furrowed. “But do you really own the Dark Castle?”

Gold forced himself to meet her eyes and give her a wry expression. “I own most the city, my dear.”

“Yes, I know. But the Dark Castle, too?”

Once Belle got her heels dug in, she never budged. So Gold yielded. “Yes.”

Belle gave a little squeal of excitement. “I can’t believe it! Ruby’s never going to believe me! All of us have always speculated about who owned the place, and all along, it was you! I should have known.”

“All of whom?”

“Everyone!”

Gold was not aware that the Dark Castle was such a subject of interest in the town. It bothered him. Being so withdrawn from the populace did have its negative consequences, he supposed. “So…you’ve seen it?”

“Of course I have,” she said as though it were the stupidest question he’d ever asked her.

Gold paled. She’d been up there. With it.

“Ruby thinks I’m crazy at how often I go up there,” Belle continued. “It gives her the heebie-jeebies. Even the boys freak out.”

There was a small spark of pride in her eye at the confession, and if Gold weren’t having a minor heart attack, he’d share in her pride. She was a brave thing, after all.

“They think it’s haunted.”

They had no clue.

“And what do you think?” Gold weakly asked.

She got a strange, faraway look in her eyes. “I don’t know. It feels…different up there, like your heart is both speeding up and slowing down, and your skin is both cold and hot. It feels…like magic.”

She laughed. Gold nearly swallowed his tongue.

“I mean, it’s not like magic actually exists, but it’s what I’d imagine it would feel like if it did.” She grinned and lowered her voice mysteriously. “Electrifying and inexplicable, with a touch of invincibility mixed with dread.”

He stared at her, longing to hear more, longing to  _feel_  it once more. The power. The dominance. The sheer  _might_  of the magic. But as soon as he caught the track of his mind, he recoiled, appalled at himself.

“So what do you keep up there?” she asked.

_The faerie half of my split soul, the most powerful, most dangerous creature in the entire world, who could wipe out armies with the flick of a nail, who could bring hell to earth and fire from the sky!_

“Nothing,” he murmured, turning his back on her. “It’s just an empty house.”

“And what about your gardener?”

He spun back. Had she seen Rumpelstiltskin? “My…what?”

“You know, your gardener.” She looked at him strangely. “You do own the place, don’t you? He’s a great big guy, bald, doesn’t speak a word?”

The Guardian.

The Blue Fairy had sent the eternal Guardian to keep the place safe, both ensuring that Rumpelstiltskin never escaped and warding off intruders. It was deep, powerful magic, some of the deepest, most powerful. By day, he walked as man. By night, a white wolf. And at all times, a being with only one purpose: to protect the world from Rumpelstiltskin. Why Belle thought he was a gardener, Gold had no idea.

“Ah, yes. He lives there.”

“All alone?”

“How often?” Gold asked, changing the subject.

The abrupt question threw Belle off. “How often what?”

“You said you go up there often. How often?”

She shrugged. “Not as much as I used to. Back in high school, after I got my driver’s license, I went at least twice a month. Now it’s whenever Dad doesn’t need me and I don’t have to work in the flower shop. And, of course, when I’m not putting up with you.” She smiled to let him know she was kidding.

He was too panicked to care. “Belle, that place is very dangerous,” he said.

“Dangerous? But I don’t go in the house or anything. I just wander along the gate.”

“Belle.” Her name came out almost in a whimper. “Please, promise me you won’t go up there again without letting me know.”

A slightly guilty look crossed her face. “Does it bother you that I’ve gone up there? I promise, I never trespass or anything like some of the other boys have tried to do. One time, Peter swore he got chased away by a white wolf the size of a cow. Is that why it’s dangerous? There’s wild animals or something?”

“Yes, I mean, no, just—” He sighed. “Please?”

Her ocean blue eyes held his coffee brown. Then she nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

The iron claw at Gold’s heart lessened and he took his first normal breath since the conversation had started.

“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Gold?” Belle abruptly asked, standing up and drawing close to him.

He started to flinch back then mastered his reaction.

 _This is Belle_ , he told himself.

“You seem…different today,” she continued, concern darkening her expression. “I noticed it earlier, but I know how much you don’t like me prying.” She gave him a small smile at that. “And I know you’re a grown man.” Another smile. “But…are you okay?”

He forced a smile back. “Of course.”

One of her eyebrows lifted. “Hmph,” she huffed in disbelief, letting her disapproval at what she perceived to be a lie show.

“Belle, I’m fine,” Gold repeated, and something made him draw her small hands into his.

And suddenly, just so suddenly, the mood shifted. But to what, Gold didn’t know. She looked down at their joined hands, then up to his face, and her smile faded. He felt her lightly squeeze his hands, and he felt locked there, like those little fingers were keeping his suffocating heart above water, like those ocean-deep eyes could sever the link between himself and his monster for a split second.

He felt…free.

And then the moment ended.

A small, shy smile pulled at Belle’s lips and she pulled away. “I think I’ll, uh…”

She brushed a curl of hair behind her ear, and, was she blushing? She pointed to the room where Gold kept all his spare books and which Belle had designated her very own special place the very first day she’d started work. They’d received a new shipment of books yesterday that showed some promise, and he was, in all truth, surprised that she’d managed to keep away this long.

“I’ll just unload the books and get them organized.”

“Yes, good idea,” Gold said, quickly turning away and trying to gather his thoughts.

What had just happened?

“Mr. Gold!” Belle suddenly cried from the other room.

“What? What!” He spun around, bashed his thigh into the desk, knocked something off which made a loud crashing sound, and hurried to the book room. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of seeing the demon he’d half expected, he found her holding up a beautifully illustrated, leather-bound, and very old (not to mention very valuable, though he’d never tell Belle just how valuable) copy of  _Pride and Prejudice_. There was a sticky note on the cover with his neat handwriting:

 _For your excellent work on the ledgers_.

It took a moment for Gold’s brain to catch up. Last night, he’d started to unpack the box after Belle had left, and he’d found the book. He remembered smiling as he thought about how Austen was one of Belle’s favorites, how much she’d love it, so, without further thought, he’d set it aside for her. It was one of now a dozen books he’d given her since she’d started working.

And their conversation went just as it always did.

“I can’t accept this!” She bit her lower lip, eyes glued to the cover (like usual).

“The cover is too worn and some idiot child got a hold of the last page. It’d never sell well.”

Which was, of course, a lie, and they both knew it, but neither would admit it.

Then she swung back and forth a bit, pretending to think about it while, of course, they both knew her love for all things old and book-ish would win out in the end, until her face beamed (Gold’s favorite part every time, the sheer delight).

“Thank you!”

And then something happened that hadn’t happened before. Ever.

She danced up to him and kissed his cheek.

When she pulled back, she bit her lip a second time, hiding a smile, and her cheeks were definitely flushed.

“No matter,” Gold somehow managed to say. “I’ll…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the back room and limped away.

“Thank you!” Belle called again, and he waved his hand without turning back.

After closing the door to the book room, Gold stood there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular. Then sat at his desk. Picked up a pen. Stared some more. Rubbed his cheek where the ghost of her kiss burned.

And his heart thumped.

xxx

Nineteen miles away on the grounds of the Dark Castle and thirty feet in the air, Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes flashed open. He could feel Gold’s heartbeat. The change in its timbre.

He’d been waiting two hundred years for that sound.

Slipping from his perch on the top branches of a giant oak, Rumpelstiltskin landed on the ground in a crouch. He closed his eyes and drew a single name out of his other self’s mind.

 _Belle_.

He slowly stood up, a grin creeping over his shadowed face.

_Belle!_

And he giggled, the high manic sound startling a pack of crows. They took to the sky like a black cloud, their protesting caws ringing in the faerie’s ears, and he gloried in the sound, rubbing his hands together and dancing in a tight circle.

Then, as quickly as he’d started, he stopped.

“Come to me, my dearie,” he whispered. “Come to me!”

The words carried on the wind.

And the faerie laughed a second time.

xxx

Belle started awake. She’d been dreaming. Or, at least, she thought she had been. But the only wisp remaining of the dream was the sound of a high tittering laugh, echoing in her mind. And a word. One word.

 _Come_ …

Rubbing her eyes, Belle glanced at the clock. It was exactly midnight. She groaned. She felt too strangely skittish to try and get back to sleep, so she slipped her legs over the side of her bed and grabbed her blue robe. Before she left her room, her eyes rested on the leather-bound  _Pride and Prejudice_  on her night stand, right next to the pillow where she slept, and she felt her stomach roll oh so pleasantly.

She’d kissed Mr. Gold.

Sure, it was only his cheek, but she’d done it. She’d finally gotten up the courage to do it.

And she’d loved it. In fact, she certainly wouldn’t mind doing it again if she didn’t think that a second kiss might send Mr. Gold into a comma. He’d looked so dazed.

Feeling the dumb grin on her face and a giggle threatening to break loose, she crept to the kitchen, hoping that she wouldn’t wake her father. As she stood at the sink, filling a tea kettle, she wondered whether it’d be awkward with Mr. Gold tomorrow at work. She hoped not. But even if it was, she’d have the books to—

 _Come_ …

—books to—

_Come…_

Books to…what? She found herself staring at the pendulum of the grandfather clock in the corner. She couldn’t look away. She just watched it swing back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

 _Come_ …

She felt her heart race and slow, all at the same time. Her skin heat and cool. A feeling of invincibility. A feeling of dread.

Back and forth…

_Come to me, my dearie!_

She felt the kettle slip from her fingers. She closed her eyes.

And when she opened them, she was standing at the gate of the Dark Castle.

Belle jerked back, surfacing from her daze, and when she heard a jingling sound in her hand, she threw the object out of her palm with a yelp. Her car keys fell to the ground.

Car keys?

Belle turned around and saw her 1993 blue Toyota Tercel parked at the side of the road. She felt a shiver crawl up her spine.

How had she gotten here?

She was still in her pajamas. Barefoot. And somehow she’d gone from the kitchen sink to the Dark Castle in a matter of seconds. Or had it been longer, and she just couldn’t remember?

“Belle?”

She knew that voice.

Belle turned back to the gate and saw Mr. Gold standing behind the bars, the soft light of the moon painted over his face.

“Mr. Gold!” she cried, running to the gate and gripping the iron bars. “I was—I was in the kitchen filling a teapot and then—and then, I was here. And you must think I’m crazy, but I don’t know how—”

“Why don’t you come inside?” Mr. Gold said. His voice was mild. Quiet.

“But—”

Something was off. She was hitting full panic mode and he didn’t even seem to care. That was nothing like the man she knew—the man who had insisted she let him take her to the emergency room after a box of books fell on her head, who bought a ridiculously well-stocked first aid kit the day after, and who drove her home every night it rained or when it was even just a little bit icy out or when they’d lose track of time talking about books until it had grown dusky outside.

And…his eyes. They looked fevered. Restless. Cold. Nothing like the warmth of her Mr. Gold’s eyes.

And it hit her. This wasn’t Mr. Gold at all.

“Come inside, dearie,” the thing said, and that sealed it for Belle. Mr. Gold had stopped calling her ‘dearie’ ages ago.

She took a step back. “Who are you?” she whispered.

The thing tilted its head to the side, observing her curiously, and its eyes burned hotter. “I’m Mr. Gold.”

Belle shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

A cloud passed over the moon, and Belle felt herself gasp when the thing’s skin turned a greenish gray with slivers of gold and Mr. Gold’s suit was replaced by a brown leather coat with spikes on the sides and knee-high leather boots. Reptilian black eyes stared back at her.

“Wrong, dearie,” the thing said in a high childish voice, rolling the ‘r’ of his first word. He grinned, showing his rotting teeth. “We  _are_  Mr. Gold.”

The creature twirled its hand in a flourish, and the iron gate swung open with a screech.

“Now,” it said, bowing with hands outstretched and looking up at Belle through his crimped, dirty hair, eyes dancing mischievously, “won’t you come inside?”

xxx

Mr. Gold was pacing his bedroom and had been for hours.

He’d been woken at midnight by a dream. No, a nightmare. An image of Belle standing at the gates of the Dark Castle. But she had promised she wouldn’t go. She’d sworn. And somehow, at some point in their relationship, he’d come to trust her, the only human being he had trusted in two centuries. He consciously ignored what that could mean.

All the same, though, Gold felt a niggling sensation in his gut, a gnawing that wouldn’t cease, that wouldn’t stop throwing him images of finding Belle’s broken and mangled body on the grounds of that unhallowed place. It terrified him like nothing had in two hundred years.

When the clock on his bed stand read 3:00 a.m., Gold had had enough.

He threw on dark clothes, his black coat, black gloves, and went down the stairs to his study to retrieve a small case hidden in the safe behind a picture frame. Slipping out the front door, he felt the sting of moonlight on his face. With a quick glance up, he noticed that there were many clouds strewn across the sky, making their slow way across the ceiling of the universe, but he’d just happened to catch a stray beam. He bowed his head to let his hair provide as much protection as possible and hurried to the safety of the car.

It’d been a long time since he’d risked leaving his home at night. The streets were abandoned, a stillness wrapped about the sleeping town. That was good. If he was caught, he had no clue what he’d say, neither to his particular skin defect when exposed to moonlight nor to breaking into his twenty-four year old employee’s home in the wee hours of morning. In his mind, the latter was a much greater cause for concern. What would he tell Belle?

But he had to make sure she was okay, that his dream was nothing but the tortured imaginings of his brain.

She had to be. She just  _had_  to.

He parked two streets away from the Game of Thorns and kept to the shadows. He crept to the back door of the store where he knew the living quarters were, and, unzipping the small case he’d brought with him, pulled out his lock-picking tools. Within a half second, the door clicked open.

Gold had never been inside Belle’s little home before. She’d invited him in for tea on several occasions when he’d driven her home, but he’d never accepted. It wouldn’t be right. And now he’d broken into her house to spy on her at three in the morning. It felt like intruding on sacred space, and something about the situation made him want to laugh—a sick, crazed laugh—but he held it in.

Laughing was what  _it_  did. Not Gold.

He started to close the door behind him then tilted his head and froze.

Was that water running in the kitchen?

Was it Belle? Was she safe?

He slowly stepped forward, holding his cane above the ground and avoiding a tower of books. Ready to dart away at any second, he snuck a quick look around the corner into the kitchen.

No one.

But the water was on, a teakettle overturned on its side in the sink. As though someone had left in a hurry. Or been forced to leave.

A wave of nausea ripped through Gold’s body at the sight.  _Oh, God_ , he thought as he hurried down the hallway, completely indifferent to the noise of his cane hitting the wood floor and of his rapid steps.  _Oh, God, no, please…_

He opened the first door. The bathroom.

Gold’s hands were trembling.

The second. Belle’s father, snoring, hooked up to a machine.

Gold put even more weight on his right leg, oblivious to the pain, as he rushed on.

The third. A closet.

There was one final door. Gold held his breath and opened it. Books. Everywhere. The copy of  _Pride and Prejudice_  he’d given Belle just that morning was sitting on the night stand, along with the other books he’d gifted her thus far. There was a framed picture of a woman and a child. A jar of sand. A bed with tousled blankets.

But no Belle.

“Oh…” Gold gasped, gripping the door frame as his legs went weak and his vision blurred.

What had he done? He’d gotten too close, let her in too far, and now he’d lost her too. Just like the others. Like Bae.

Feeling a sudden surge of hot rage course through his veins, Gold whirled around and whipped back down the hallway and through the front door, letting it crash behind him. He practically ran to his car. Slammed his foot down. Threw the car into a u-turn. And headed for the woods.

He would kill him.

He would kill Rumpelstiltskin if he’d harmed a single hair on her head, even if it meant his own death.

As Gold went further into the forest, his entire body was shaking. For one of the first times in two decades, Gold wished he still had the faerie power. He wanted to simply wish himself to the Dark Castle, not waste precious seconds in a car on a windy road. He wanted to scream at how slow human travel was.

When he caught his first sight of the Dark Castle’s turrets, an unbidden feeling of unease rolled over him, and it abruptly hit him what he was doing.

It’d been two hundred years since he’d last seen the castle.

Two hundred years since he’d last seen  _him_.

Rumpelstiltskin.

Fighting memories that threatened to overwhelm him, Gold clenched his jaw and pushed his foot down even harder on the accelerator.

When Gold reached the entrance and got out of the car, glad to see the moon hidden once more behind cloud, he could feel the magic permeating the very air, could smell its sickly sweet scent and feel the rough tingle on his exposed skin. He wanted to vomit. Wanted to run away. But he kept going forward. He stopped mid-step, though, when he heard a shrill, inhuman giggle, the one that haunted his dreams.

“And so, the prodigal son returns! Huzzah! Huzzah!”

There was a swirl of purple smoke, and he was there, dressed just as gaudily, looking just as otherworldly as ever. He had his hands wrapped around the bars, his face pressed against the iron, and the sight made Gold shiver at what that meant.

Iron was supposed to repel the faerie folk. And two hundred years ago, it had repelled Rumpelstiltskin.

Not anymore, apparently.

Rumpelstiltskin smirked, and there was something dark in his eyes, darker and wilder than Gold remembered. “I’d invite you in for the requisite feast and all, dearie, but the staff is just atrocious here, and the food, oh the food! It—”

“Where is she?” Gold’s voice was low.

“She? A she? Where is the she?” The faerie’s grin widened. “Whatever can you mean? Am I your she’s keeper?”

Gold leapt forward and swung his cane against the bars, striking the creature’s fingers. “Where is she!”

Rumpelstiltskin tutted disapprovingly, sticking his fingers in his mouth. “Temper, temper! Is this the way to greet your better half? You never call. You never visit. If I didn’t not know better, I’d say you don’t like me very much,” he sulked.

“I’m going to ask you one last time,” Gold said through gritted teeth. “Where. Is. She.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled lazily, loosely wrapping his hands around the bars once more. “I have no idea who you mean, dearie. It’s just been me without my more lonesome self—” he gestured to Gold “—for, hmm, let’s see?” He put his talon on his chin and assumed a comically thoughtful look. “Two hundred years? Is that right? Well! You have no clue what such isolation does for a person’s sanity! You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not quite up to speed. Now if you’ll just allow me…”

Gold felt something move in his mind, like a finger stirring milk with coffee. An image of Belle just as Gold had seen her that day, waving goodbye with a shy smile at her lips, was yanked to the surface and held suspended in his thoughts. Gold paled.

“Aah, yes, she is a beauty.” Rumpelstiltskin grinned. “I wouldn’t mind meeting this Belle myself.”

Gold violently hurled Rumpelstiltskin out of his memories and slammed his cane against the fence once more. The clanging sound echoed through the darkness. “If you come anywhere near her—!”

“Why, Mr. Gold!” Rumpelstiltskin mockingly exclaimed. “Are you in love with the girl? Can this be—” he put his two hands on his heart and rolled his eyes up “—twu wuv?” His face suddenly darkened and his voice lowered, almost to a natural level. “Because you do remember what I swore that night you betrayed me?”

 _I will kill anyone you ever love_.

The ruthless words rang in Gold’s heart, and his blood ran cold.

When Rumpelstiltskin had first made the oath, Gold had thought it would never apply to him. He’d already lost his Bae. He knew he’d never love again, and he made it easy for the world to hate him, to shun and fear him. In many ways, he’d become the monster he’d been running from all along.

Then Belle had walked into his shop. And she’d seen  _him_.

But none of that mattered because Gold didn’t,  _couldn’t_  love her. He appreciated her helpfulness, enjoyed their discussions, and, yes, cared for her, but…love?

Gold stepped right up to the gate and put his face as close to Rumpelstiltskin’s as he dared. “Don’t you dare touch her,” he ground out, lifting a finger. “She’s innocent.”

“But do you love her?”

“I have never and do not love Belle French,” Gold said as forcefully as he could, ignoring the way in which the words seemed to chip at his heart. Because the words had to be true. They had to be, if he was going to keep Belle safe from this demon and his bloody oath.

Rumpelstiltskin smiled. “Are you sure?”

“She means nothing to me.” Another jagged tear to his soul.

The smile widened. Then quickly disappeared, and Rumpelstiltskin sighed. “Ah, what a pity. I was so hoping to make good on my promise.”

Gold swallowed. The bile was rising once more. “So…where is she?”

“Again with the blaming!” Rumpelstiltskin looked absurdly affronted, one hand on his breast and his mouth wide open in dismay. “How should I know where the girl is? I’ve done nothing with your little Belle.”

Gold searched the connection he had with the faerie as deeply as he could, searching for any lie in Rumpelstiltskin’s words, but he found none. The faerie was telling the truth. He hadn’t harmed Belle. She was safe. She’d kept her word. She’d not come here. His dream had only been a dream, and the relief almost strangled Gold. Maybe Belle had been in the storefront of the Game of Thorns. Gold felt almost silly for not having checked there. Surely that’s where she’d been.

She was safe.

He gave a curt nod and, without another word, turned on his heel.

“Leaving so soon?” Rumpelstiltskin morosely called.

Gold ignored him. He’d gotten halfway to the car when something struck him. Something that was missing. He raised his head and looked back at the faerie who had his arms hanging through the bars. “Where’s the Guardian?”

“Oh, that lumbering oaf?” Rumpelstiltskin pointed above him to a white dove roosting in the tree. “I turned him into a dove. His ceaseless howling was grating on my nerves, and you know how difficult it is to get white dog hair out of your clothes? Near impossible, I tell you.”

Gold felt as though Rumpelstiltskin had punched him in the gut. First the iron. And now the faerie was able to tamper with the Blue Fairy’s eternal Guardian.

He was growing in power.

It had been unwise for Gold to avoid this place so long.

Suddenly sick, he spun back around and hastened to the car.

“Yes, Gold. I _am_  growing stronger! These bars won’t keep me forever!” Rumpelstiltskin shouted, shaking the gate with inhuman force. “I will be free! And when I am, I’ll come for you!”

Gold jumped for the car door.

“I’ll come for you, I’ll rip your soul to shreds, and you’ll beg before the day is out to be reunited with me! You’ll beg for me to possess you, dominate you! We’ll rise, together, you and I, and bring the world to the feet of Chaos, gloating in her glory! We’ll live eternal, invincible, omnipotent, and free! We’ll be free, Gold! FREE!”

Gold dared a final glance back. The faerie’s eyes were wild as he opened his mouth wide and laughed maniacally. A flash of moonlight suddenly broke through the clouds, and Gold flinched at the sting turning his own flesh green.

“You see, you see!” Rumpelstiltskin cried as his faerie skin turned to the flesh of a human. He pointed back and forth between the two of them. “You and me, Gold, we’re the same! The same!”

The faerie tossed something, and Gold leapt backward. There was a flash of silver arcing through the air. And then it landed on the ground right at his feet.

It was the king’s coin, and something told Gold it was the same coin Rumpelstiltskin had flipped two hundred years ago.

“Two sides, one whole!”

And then the faerie laughed again, shaking the bars. Gold wrenched the car door open and dove inside, the sound of Rumpelstiltskin’s giggles and howls following the car for miles, ringing through the forest, in his body, in his head.

When Gold could finally no longer hear it, when there was nothing but trees and darkness and road, he pulled over, turned off the car, leaned his head against the steering wheel, and wept.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to Belle.

“Now, won’t you come inside?”

Something lurched inside Belle’s guts like a fishing hook, yanking her forward. She felt her legs carry her body to the gate and to the thing that looked so very much like Mr. Gold but was so very much  _not_  him.

Was this the danger Mr. Gold had been referring to?

_(The creature’s smirk grew bigger and bigger as she got closer and closer…)_

Because if this was the danger, why hadn’t he sat her down and explained, ‘Belle, you should know that there’s a half man, half lizard, half crocodile—

_(Was that too many halves?)_

—thing at the Dark Castle who inexplicably looks exactly like me sometimes, and other times suffers from a very bad skin condition, enlarged pupils, and remarkably poor dental hygiene. I would advise you to stay away.’

_(Why couldn’t she stop walking?)_

If Mr. Gold had told her all of that—

_(Why couldn’t she stop!)_

—she would have been prepared when she’d found a half man, half lizard, half crocodile thing at the Dark Castle pretending to be her Mr. Gold.

 _(Wait,_ her _Mr. Gold? She kind of liked the sound of that…)_

But instead, she found herself involuntarily walking up to the triple-halved Mr. Gold look-a-like—

_(How was the creature doing it? Why couldn’t she just stop! Stop! Please, stop!)_

—without the foggiest idea whether she was dreaming, had lost her mind after kissing Mr. Gold’s cheek, or if all of this was actually happening.

_(The imp rose out of his bow as Belle came within two feet of the gate. His eyes were gleaming black and wild, his hands twisting around each other restlessly, a giggle of delight beginning to trill out of his mouth. Should she be frightened? Why wasn’t she frightened?)_

So yes, Mr. Gold should have just told her instead of making her promise to—promise to…

_(Belle felt her pace stutter.)_

Promise…

_(The imp tilted his head to the side as she paused mid-step.)_

Promise!

She had promised Mr. Gold not to come to the Dark Castle without telling him and this stupid lizard man had made her break it! How  _dare_  he?

_(Belle felt a second, stronger lurch in her stomach and—)_

“No!” Belle cried, gasping as she suddenly broke through whatever suffocating spell she’d been under. She jerked backward, only an inch away from breeching the Dark Castle’s border. Something inside Belle told her that if she’d passed that line, there’d have been no return.

But she wasn’t scared of what could have been.

No, she was furious.

The creature’s eyes widened and he pointed a black talon at her. “How did you do that?”

“That,” Belle shouted, glaring at the creature and ignoring his question, “was  _not_  nice!”

His talon wavered. He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That wasn’t very nice!” she repeated more angrily. “You can’t do that to people!”

His gray-green face was blank for a moment, mouth opening and closing, as though trying to taste the cool air, before he snapped it closed, stood up straight, and crossed his arms. “Ah, but as you full know, dearie, I  _can_  do that to people!”

“Then you  _shouldn’t_  do it,” she corrected. “It’s not nice!”

What was she doing? Wasn’t this the perfect time to be running for her life, not reprimanding the creature like a disobedient dog?

“Not…nice?” he repeated, scrunching his nose. “Do I look like a person who cares about ‘not nice’?”

“I don’t care what you look like, that’s just how it is! Do you think that all this—” she gestured at his odd clothes, green skin, talons, and everything else alien about him “—gives you an excuse to drag people out of their homes in the middle of the night willy nilly?”

“Yes?” the creature weakly said, the word coming out as a question.

Belle snorted. “How convincing.”

The creature looked at Belle with a curious expression, dancing a step forward, up to the property line, and staring straight into her eyes.

Belle squared her shoulders and forced herself to meet his reptilian eyes, instinctively shivering when she felt herself plunge into the lawlessness, the madness, and wildness she saw there.

He was silent for a moment, a calculating expression on his face. “You,” he finally pronounced, “are a very strange woman.”

Belle snorted again. “Like I haven’t heard  _that_  before.”

The creature flitted back again, starting to pace in a small line, fingers agitated and arms waving violently. “And yes! I can summon you here and there and willy and nilly and witherwhere I want to, because I am the Dark One! I can do anything I want! The very night cowers in my presence! Hell fears my tread! I am power and might, chaos and craze! With one flick of my hand, I could turn you and everyone in this filthy land into snails, and I could—”

Belle unsuccessfully tried to stifle a giggle, and the creature halted in the middle of all his wild gesticulating and proud pontificating.

“I’m sorry,” she said, fighting a smile. “Please. Continue.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny?”

“Snails? Really?” She gave him a look. “You’d change us all into a bunch of snails?”

His mouth did that funny open and close thing again, and Belle had to fight back another laugh.

“And what’s wrong with snails?” he lowly asked, something deep in his eyes sparking.

“Absolutely nothing. Really. Please continue. I won’t stop you again.”

xxx

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her.

This night was  _not_  turning out the way he had imagined. It was supposed to end in screaming, blood, and tears—Gold’s tears—but instead, the little slip of a girl was laughing at him. At  _him_! The mightiest, scariest, most dangerous creature in all seven hells and twenty universes!

His brow furrowed as he searched for something,  _anything_ , he could say that would scare her.

Fire. Yes! People feared fire!

He twirled his hand and opened his palm to reveal a burning sphere of red-hot fire. “I could torch this place,” he said in as scary a voice as he could muster, adding, “I could burn down all your people’s fields and buildings! I’d send all your women and children weeping into the—”

“How did you do that!” Belle exclaimed, face bright with excitement as she got right up to the boundary. “Is it real fire?”

Again, his words dried up in his mouth. Did she have no fear for the women and children of this land? Would nothing get her attention?

Feeling a profound sense of irritation, Rumpelstiltskin violently hurled the fire ball into the nearest tree, sending the poor oak into a poof of angry, licking flames.

And the girl clapped her hands, whooping with elation.

Rumpelstiltskin growled.

 _Great_ , he sulked.  _Now I’ve just torched my favorite tree. For nothing_.

Waving his arm, he extinguished the flames and let darkness shroud them once more.

Now what?

“That. Was. Incredible!” Belle said, grinning.

Rumpelstiltskin felt something stir in a very small corner of his heart, and he sent a mental firebomb to that corner and nuked the blasted place.

“What else can you do?” Belle asked.

Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes. He flippantly flicked his hand and the tree on his other side turned to ice and sprouted little ice apples along its branches.

She clapped again, shrilling out her praises.

So he pointed above him and, in a flash of purple light, the sky above the boundary of the Dark Castle transformed into a pallet of translucent light. Greens, yellows, and the hints of pink waved in the night sky like little rivulets, the stars still visible through the thin strands of light.

“Ooooh,” Belle said, voice almost reverent. “I’ve always wanted to see an aurora borealis!”

Rumpelstiltskin thought he caught the faint trace of a tear in the strange girl’s eyes, and, feeling a sudden panic that she might actually start crying, he quickly waved his hand and the light shattered into a million pieces, floating down to the ground like snowflakes where they disintegrated into nothingness.

“Holy—I just—that was—” the girl was stuttering like a truly crazy person. Maybe he’d snapped her mind earlier by accident?

“Spit it out,” he said, trying to maintain an irritated expression as he quickly searched her brain for any defects. He found none and frowned. So what was wrong with her?

“Gah!” she spluttered. “You’re amazing!”

That pesky corner of his heart perked up its ear again. He squashed it mercilessly. Angrily. _Desperately_.

“You can do magic!”

“Clearly,” he murmured.

“But magic—” She broke off excitedly. “So magic exists?”

He snorted. “Of course it does. It exists wherever life exists.”

“So what are you?” He opened his mouth to start on his ‘I’m the destroyer of nations’ speech when she added, “And none of that burning fields and snails stuff.”

His mouth snapped closed then answered without his permission simply and without any grandeur whatsoever, “A faerie.”

“You mean, like Tinkerbell?”

“No,” he snarled, curling his lips at the thought of being compared to any light fairy and, in particular,  _that_  one.

Belle’s lips twitched. “Oh. Sorry.”

Silence.

What was he supposed to do now? Blow up the Dark Castle? Something told him that instead of frightening her, she’d give him another round of applause.

Tempting…

Wait, what? Tempting? He was the Dark One! Not some lowlife hired to perform magic tricks for a child!

“So why did you—” she made a complicated and completely indecipherable series of gestures that had him cocking his head in confusion “—you know, call me? Mesmer me? What is it that you did?”

“A simple summoning spell,” he heard himself divulge.

Were there any secrets he’d be able to maintain tonight? He crossed his arms.

Like that would help.

“Yes, the summoning spell,” she said, trying the phrase out. “Why did you want me to come?”

He paused. And decided on the truth. Maybe that would finally scare her.

“To kill you.”

“To kill me?” she repeated, brow raised. “Whatever for?”

He had expected yelling, running, cries for mercy. Not a dialogue.

But the question had woken up the rage inside.

“Because of  _him_ ,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

His skin began to crawl.

“Who?”

“He betrayed me.”

“Who did?”

It was like the girl wasn’t there anymore.

Rumpelstiltskin looked around him. His chest was pounding. His blood. His head. “Locked me here in this—” he sneered “—this cage.”

“Who locked you up?”

“Left me to rot,” he snarled. Black magic was dancing over his hands now. “To fester and howl.” Unable to contain his rage, he shot a blast of hot violet energy into the still smoking tree. “He betrayed  _us_!” Another blast. “Split us! Tore us in two!” Two more blasts. Rumpelstiltskin’s mind was roaring, shrieking, a thousand voices raised in bedlam, in fury. “And then he left me behind! Alone!” Three rapid-fire blasts and then he turned toward Belle in a violent whirl, and he saw her flinch backward, craved her flinch, hated it. “For two hundred years with only the voices in here—” he pointed to his head, and he felt a manic giggle beginning to boil in his gut “—to keep me company, as he ran away like the coward he is!”

The giggle exploded, and Rumpelstiltskin danced in a circle, glutting on the chaos in his brain.

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee!” he sang. “We no be so free!”

Faster and faster and faster. Louder, louder!

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee! There be no me, no we!”

He was losing himself. He chanted even faster, danced even lighter. He thought he heard the human say something but it was a blur. A whirl. Black energy crowded around him, buzzing in his ear, ripping through his flesh, his bones, his blood.

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee! He no hear my plea!”

Yes, she was calling to him, crying for him to stop. But he was lost, lost as the wind, as the rain, as the earth and tree.

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee! Moonlight shows the we!”

Lost! Lost! Lost!

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee! We no be so—”

“Please!”

Everything stilled. Stopped. Froze.

He looked down at his arm.

And saw a small, peach-colored, delicate hand resting there.

“Please,” she whispered again, face inches from his.

His mind began to howl with frenzy.

She had crossed the boundary.

She was vulnerable.

She was here.

She was touching him…

He tore his eyes up to her face. Felt tethered to eyes not any length of free sky could match.

“Go,” he roughly said.

_(Tear her! Kill her!)_

“Go now!” he shouted, shoving her away, barely able to stop himself from locking his jaw over her throat and letting her blood trail down his chin.

_(Smell the blood! Bring his pain!)_

“GO!”

Belle scampered back over the line, the first look of fear coming into her eyes. The howling savored the fear, licked its scent from the air, and groaned with hunger.

“Never come back!” he yelled over the screaming in his mind, and the gate crashed closed. He gripped the bars, relishing the burning sting of the iron on his faerie flesh, wished he could bathe in that pain. “Never come back! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

He crawled up the bars, every atom of his being banging itself against the barrier over and over and over. Everything was a cloud of anguish.

“GO!”

With a final glance in his direction where Rumpelstiltskin surfaced long enough to read pity, no longer fear, in her clear blue eyes, she dashed into her car, turned on the ignition, and sped away.

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee!” Rumpelstiltskin crowed, the chant breaking from his throat in time to his pounding on the gate. “Tittle-hee-hee-heeeeeeeeeee!”

xxx

Rumpelstiltskin had finally quieted the bloodlust, voices, and madness when Gold showed up.

It was the first time in two hundred years he’d seen his other half, and it had left him with such longing, such need, such restless anger…

His second bout of insanity after Gold’s departure didn’t cease until the first rosy fingers of dawn.

Exhausted, drained, Rumpelstiltskin pulled his broken body hand over hand up to the highest branches of an ancient oak and curled up in a small ball.

He thought about what Gold had said:  _She means nothing to me_.

It had been a lie. Gold might not know it yet, but Rumpelstiltskin had sensed the change in his human self’s heart. He had sensed the first moment Gold had fallen in love.

Yet even so, Rumpelstiltskin had been unable to kill her, this strange Belle French. Somehow he’d controlled the frenzy long enough to let her go.

Why?

 _The girl would like this sunrise_ , he thought, watching nature’s hand paint the sky with liberal touch.

And with that final thought, he wrapped his arms around his body and rocked himself to sleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold lets Belle go.

Gold went to the pawnshop after leaving the faerie. It was dark but he didn’t bother turning on the lights as he limped inside and paused at the coat stand by the door. He brushed two fingers along the curved wood.

This was where Belle hung her jacket every morning, a cheery “Good morning, Mr. Gold!” always piping from her smiling mouth. How often had he returned her greeting with more than a simple grunt? Had he ever?

He tugged his fingers away from the wood and took another step into his shop. Gold could feel his chest burning, but it wasn’t the burn of the dagger wound. The fire was inside him, scorching, biting.

How many times had she invited him to go to lunch with her and he’d refused? After the first month of his saying no, she’d returned one day with both her own lunch and something for him in one brown paper bag. At first, he’d refused that too. But—stubborn Belle that she was—she’d not given up until he’d yielded. And then she’d done it the next day. And the day after that. They had lunch together in the shop every day now, squished around his desk in the dim back room, chatting about books or the funny things the citizens of Storybrooke did. Sometimes he’d tell her about the many places he’d traveled, and she would listen, riveted to his every word, sandwich completely forgotten in her hand. He’d tease her, then, telling her that he’d stop talking if she didn’t eat, and she’d slam the sandwich into her mouth with more haste than a child with sweets.

Even though they’d set up a routine of her going to Granny’s every day at noon to pick up their two sandwiches (charged to his account, of course), she still asked him at least once a week to come with her to Granny’s for a change, to sit with her in a booth in public instead of holed up in the darkness of his shop.

Why hadn’t he ever said yes? Even just once?

Gold continued his slow progress through the shop, glancing at the creepy puppets she so abhorred, changing direction and approaching the illustrated, worn book of fairytales she so loved. He’d tried to give it to her once, but she’d insisted he leave it in the shop.

“A young child needs this,” she’d said matter of factly, closing the large bound book with finality and lifting her head to give him a somewhat nostalgic smile. “Not someone as old as I.”

So it’d stayed in the shop, not joining the other books he’d given her. But Gold had caught her on more than one slow day gently fingering the aged pages, a quiet smile at her lips and the rays of light from the windows tangling in her rich brown hair.

Gold had never told Belle, but when a boy with dirty fingers had grabbed the book one day, treating the pages like those of a comic book and not of the holy writ they were for Belle, and when his mother with pursed lips the shade of magenta had asked what the price was, Gold had quickly swooped in and saved Belle’s book with a muttered, “It’s not for sale.” The woman had left shortly afterwards in a huff, dragging the boy behind her who had kicked the umbrella stand on his way out the door.

After that, Gold had put a porcelain statue of a rather plump woman in front of the book.

He moved the statue aside now and carefully—reverently—pulled the book out, setting it on the glass counter. The pages rustled and the binding crackled as he opened the book and flipped through, thinking that he could almost feel the ghost of Belle’s fingers on those very same pages he was touching. Cinderella. Snow White. Sleeping Beauty.

And then the picture of the imp at a spinning wheel popped up, mischievous giggle at its lips. Gold slammed the book closed, shoving it away. It fell off the counter and onto the ground with a hollow thump.

He felt restless now, felt his mind clamoring for harbor as it was buffeted by wind-swept waves. He paced through the shop, the rapid tap-tap of his cane echoing through the shop, as he let the memories rip through his quickly beating heart.

There was the spot she’d once straightened his tie. There, the picture frame she’d cracked and literally bawled out apologies for ruining such a masterpiece. Gold stopped in front of the orange and purple, wretchedly ornate vase that took up an entire corner. They both openly despised it but sang its praises to every customer that passed through the doors, hoping to get rid of the bloody tragedy. It had fast become a game, to see who of the two could sell it first.

But now they would never get the chance to find out.

It was the first item to go.

In a sudden rage, Gold swung his black cane and brought it crashing down on the hideous vase. It shattered in pieces, glass shards leaping into the air. Then it was a lavish mirror. Then each of the glass display cases. He struck them again and again, willing all the memories to leave, needing their suffocation to stop, wishing he could cut each strand out with a bloodied shard of glass, because he knew now. He knew.

He couldn’t keep her.

She had to go. Before it was too late.

He screamed out his agony as he destroyed everything in sight, ripping items off shelves and tossing them against the walls or against the floor to pile on top of Belle’s book of fairytales, burying it away from his sight. When all was in shambles, he hurled his cane to the ground. Bent over the counter by the till. His breath coming in short gasps.

Could he do it? Could he really do it?

He jerked upright and stumbled to the back room in a daze, throwing as much weight onto his damaged right leg as possible, letting the physical pain war with the emotional.

Could he really get rid of her?

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think past blue eyes, warm laugh, welcome smiles.

He clenched his eyes closed and cried out through clenched teeth, snapping his eyes back open to swipe a hand across his desk. Papers and ledgers, the broken clock he’d been mending—everything crashed to the floor. And then he upturned the desk on top of that.

How could he ever come back here to the pawnshop? How could he, knowing she’d be gone and knowing the many times she’d laughed at that very desk while he’d fought to hide a smile behind a cup of tea?

He seized the teapot and sent it whirling against the wall in a spray of porcelain bits.

How could he go back to teatime without her?

The sugar bowl joined the teapot with a satisfying crash, its white granules spilling over the ground and shimmering in what little light there was.

How could he go back to the loneliness—

(One of the small plates.)

—the solitude—

(There were tears in his eyes now, obscuring his vision as something else was tossed from his hands.)

—the wretched  _emptiness_  without her?

(One of the small tea cups.)

“How!” he hoarsely shouted out loud, reaching for the next item and feeling a sharp sting as his fingers caught on a jagged edge.

He glanced down at the teacup in his hand. It had a chip on its rim.

_“Oh, I’m so sorry! But it’s—it’s chipped!”_

Gold stumbled backwards as he felt her voice ring through his soul. He could see her now, kneeling, her ever so blue eyes filled with concern as she held up the broken teacup to him like an offering.

_“You can hardly see it.”_

It’d been her first week at work. He’d startled her (he hardly remembered how now), and she’d dropped the cup. She’d kneeled to pick it up, found the chip, and sat there, presenting it to him with her timid words. And he’d just stared at her, caught in those blue, blue eyes, in that tender, accented voice.

_“It’s just a cup.”_

That’s what he’d said. So very long ago. And she’d smiled with relief.

It was with that chip that Gold had first felt his heart begin to mend.

But none of that mattered now.

Gold looked down at the chaos he’d brought down upon his shop. He felt sick.

None of it could continue.

He set the cup down on the table and fled as his heart broke anew.

Because even if there was the slightest chance that he did or could love Belle French (and oh! it would be so,  _so_  easy to fall!), he would doom her. He would kill her with that love. He had let her get too close, too close to the monster who would have no qualm harming her to harm him.

And so, there was only one option.

He would have to let her go.

xxx

Belle left the Game of Thorns at 8:52 a.m. and took her time locking the door behind her.

What was she going to say to Mr. Gold when she got to the pawnshop?

She was so confused.

Last night, she’d been anxious about how the kiss would change things. She’d played out conversations in her head, scenarios in her daydreams, hoping that she hadn’t spooked Mr. Gold by her moment of daring.

But now, after everything that had happened since midnight, the kiss was the last thing she was concerned about.

What was the creature that had been at the Dark Castle? And why did he look exactly like Mr. Gold in the moon’s light and a sickly copy of the man in the dark? The creature had said it was a faerie. That it was Mr. Gold, except he hadn’t said it exactly that way.

 _“We_ are _Mr. Gold.”_

That’s what it’d said. So the two of them— _we_ —were one person? A Jekyll side and a Mr. Hyde? Or were there two separate bodies of the same person, one her Mr. Gold and the other a faerie?

When the creature had dissolved into its frenzied raving and giggling and dancing, Belle had understood little of its words. But she’d clearly caught the faerie’s rage, the sense that it’d been betrayed and somehow split or torn or something. It’d all been a bit strange. But everything paled in comparison to the utter terror Belle had felt when she’d crossed the boundary, touched the creature’s arm, and it’d turned its reptilian eyes on her.

It had wanted to kill her.

No, it was more than want. It had  _needed_  to kill her, like a starving man needs food.

That was the most scared Belle had ever been.

But then there’d been a flicker of something in those black eyes—had it been brown warmth?—and the faerie had shoved her away, yelling at her to leave, to go, and never return, screaming that it’d kill her if she ever came back.

Something told Belle that she was supposed to have died that night, slaughtered at the hands of that black-taloned creature. But even so, there was something in her that pitied the faerie. It was obviously very lonely. He seemed even lonelier than Mr. Gold had when Belle first walked into his shop. And she could see the same torment in its eyes that she’d caught in Mr. Gold’s. He hid it well, but every once in a while she’d seen the deep and shadowed pain. And in the faerie’s eyes, it had all been torment and fire and black rage. The creature was hurting, and Belle couldn’t help but want to reach out.

Especially if it was somehow a piece of Mr. Gold.

The pawnshop was coming into view and Belle nervously tucked a stray curl behind her ear. She still wasn’t sure what she’d say. Maybe she should—

The door was locked.

Belle frowned as she checked her watch. It was 9:01 a.m. Not once in her two years had the door not been open by the time she came. Not once had Mr. Gold not opened his shop on time and the store opened on the hour.

She knocked. There was no response.

She moved over to the big front window and stuck her face against the glass, her eyes widening at what she saw.

It was like a hurricane had torn through the shop. Everything was broken and smashed, tossed all about. It seemed as though nothing was still intact. Not the trinkets on the shelves. Not the glass display cases. Not anything.

Belle leapt back to the door and pounded on it, suddenly frantic. “Mr. Gold! Mr. Gold, it’s Belle! Is everything all right?”

When there was still no response, Belle pulled her cell phone out with fumbling fingers. She’d rarely ever had a need to use his personal number because he’d always  _been_ there. There’d never been a day she couldn’t depend on his presence, his smirk, his Scottish burr.

After she dialed his number, she bounced on her feet as she listened past each ringtone. She wanted to scream when it went to an automated voicemail.

Had the creature harmed Mr. Gold? Or  _was_  Mr. Gold the creature?

She pounded on the door again, called again, but his voice didn’t emerge to alleviate her concerns like it always seemed to do.

So she did something she’d never done before: she went to his home. Well, more like ran.

Everyone knew where Mr. Gold lived. And then pretended they didn’t know. But there was no chance that someone as notorious as he could go unnoticed, especially in this house.

It was a salmon pink Victorian manor trimmed in forest green with perfectly manicured grounds. She’d seen the outside several times before and had always itched to see the inside. In her imagination, she quite fancied that it would look like an extension of his pawnshop: on the dim side but warm, filled with priceless objects and with the tang of mystery in the air.

But today, her years-long yearning to see the inside was completely overwhelmed by her panic that something had happened to him, that something was wrong.

She quickly jogged up the steps and thumped on the double doors paneled with stained glass. When there was no answer, she leaned her head against the door and mindlessly kept knocking and knocking, ignoring her protesting knuckles.

What should she do now? Call Sheriff Graham? And if so, what then? How would she explain to him what had happened last night? Even she hardly believed what she’d seen. Should she go back to the Dark Castle? The thought made her shiver, but she had just made up her mind to do just that when the lock on the door clanged.

Belle jumped back, head shooting up to look through the glass and see  _her_  Mr. Gold on the other side. As soon as the door opened, she exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Gold! I was so worried! The shop has been completely—”

“You’re fired, Ms. French.”

Four words. Only four. That’s all it took.

“I’m what?” she asked, stunned, and she noticed that he wasn’t wearing a tie, vest, or coat. She’d dreamed of seeing him so dressed down before, to catch him without that top button stubbornly clinging to his neck, but now it was like a mockery of all her fantasies. This was…wrong. He looked terrible, and not in only the physical ways. Yes, there was stubble at his cheeks and dark shadows under his eyes, but he was also…cold. His eyes, his bearing, his voice—all,  _cold_. Even when they’d first met, he’d never been like this with her.

“You’re fired,” he repeated.

“But…why?”

Was it because of the faerie? The Dark Castle? The kiss?

“I don’t want you anymore, dearie,” he said.

_Dearie?_

Belle shuddered.

“But—”

“And if you don’t leave these premises now, I will have Sheriff Graham arrest you.”

Belle was speechless.

“The same goes for my shop,” he continued, just as cool as before. “If I see you there, I will call the police.”

“But—”

“Good day, Ms. French.”

And he shut the door in her face.

“But Mr. Gold!” Belle cried, banging on the door. “Mr. Gold!”

Yes, something was very,  _very_  wrong.

xxx

The second Gold had hid out of view, the mask fell away and he felt his legs sink under his weight, under the weight of what he’d just done.

He could hear her banging and shouting, her words made indistinct through the wood, and each bang and shout drilled a new hole into his bleeding heart.

“Are you happy, Rumpelstiltskin?” he murmured, resting his head against the wall behind him. “Are you pleased?”

There was no response. Only a scared, crying girl’s frantic knocks and words.

Gold closed his eyes.

And he did not move from that spot. Not when Belle French finally left. Not when the sun set. Not when the moon forced a beam of light into the house and over his face, stinging and transforming his skin with its kiss.

He simply sat there then stretched his body over the wood floor when sitting became too much.

And in the moonlit dark, he whispered one more time, “Are you happy?”

xxx

Twenty-one miles away, Rumpelstiltskin was leaning against the gate of the Dark Castle, the only thing keeping him up the iron burning into his flesh. But he didn’t move. Didn’t care. He stared at the king’s coin fifteen feet away in the dirt, glinting in the moon’s light, and dreamt of blue eyes and perfect sunsets and free, open skies. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week later. Belle returns to Rumpelstiltskin. They make their first of many deals.

Rumpelstiltskin lost track of time. The sun rose. The sun set. The moon cast down its light upon his face, transforming his skin, burning him. And then the sun rose again and started the cycle anew. It happened over and over again, but he didn’t keep count. What would be the point? Most of the time he sat at the gate, pressing every inch of himself against the acidic iron and staring unblinkingly at the king’s coin. He wasn’t sure, now, what had possessed him to flip it at Gold when he’d come. No, he  _did_  know. He had wanted Gold to see—to  _acknowledge_ —that yes, they were the same, that they were two sides, one whole. That he was Rumpelstiltskin and Rumpelstiltskin was Gold. That they were  _one_. But of course Gold hadn’t seen that. He’d left the coin in the dirt and run, fleeing like the coward he was.

And now Rumpelstiltskin had lost his coin, the coin that had been on his person every minute of every day for two hundred years. Many a night’s moon had found Rumpelstiltskin high in a tree, turning the coin in his fingers. Many a sun’s light had seen the same. He’d touched it so often that the silver was now brightly polished and the engraving had been worn down, leaving only a vague imprint of what had once been there.

But not anymore. The coin had left him. Like everything else always had. It seemed to mock him, sitting where it was fifteen feet from the gate, out in the world and free while Rumpelstiltskin was still bound to his prison. The coin’s shine caught a flash of sunlight, and it winked at him.

“You don’t have to rub it in,” Rumpelstiltskin sullenly said, face resting against the iron bars.

The coin said nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin snorted. “My fault?  _My_  fault? You didn’t do your job, dearie. This has all the markings of  _your_  failure!”

Still, nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. “Maybe that’s true.” A pause. “So what’s it like out there?” There was age-old longing in his voice.

Nothing.

“Why, aren’t you a little prince!” Rumpelstiltskin giggled. “Any chance you could come back to me, dearie?” More longing.

The coin flashed in the light.

“Fine,” Rumpelstiltskin huffed. “Have it your way. But just know, just know—” he pointed an accusing talon at the coin “—I don’t want you anymore. So there. Say anything you want. I don’t care.”

Nothing.

“Giving me the silent treatment now, eh? Aren’t we  _adults_ , dearie?” He sniffed. “Well, if you’re going to be that way, I could outlast you. You would melt to liquid before I ever let a word pass my mouth!”

Nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin pulled himself up a bit. “Now those are fighting words, you demon piece of insensate coinage! Are you sure you want to take me on? See who can hold their tongue longer? Ha! I once beat a monk of Eternal Silence from the Voiceless Mountains of Maru!”

The coin did not remind the faerie that the monk in question had let out a yelp and thus broken his vow of silence only because of the massive heart attack he’d suffered when the Dark One in all his maniacal glory had suddenly appeared before him.

“All right, coin-boy!” Rumpelstiltskin stood straight up, jiggling his arms and legs. “Let’s do this. Silence begins now!”

And there was silence.

Rumpelstiltskin stood there, glaring at the coin in the dirt, lips sealed. He lasted all of two minutes before letting out a heavy sigh, leaning against the gate with one hand grasping the bar above him, the other tucked at his stomach.

“Yeah. I know. You win.”

Another wink of light.

Rumpelstiltskin gave a small cry of exasperation, jerking upright. “Well there’s no need to rub it in!”

And, with a grunt of dissatisfaction, he transported himself to the highest branches of the highest oak on the property, leaving the winking coin to its own devices.

“The disrespect of the young folk these days,” he muttered, crossing his arms and settling against the trunk of the tree, trying to ignore how his empty fingers itched for the coin. “How appalling!”

Moon turned to dusk, dusk to dawn, and dawn to early noon when something shifted in the wind and Rumpelstiltskin cocked his head.

Someone was coming.

Leaping to the balls of his feet and balancing on the thick limb, he closed his eyes and let his senses stretch far.

A car. Small. Automatic, with an atrocious grinding between gears and a wheezy complaint on each incline. Rumpelstiltskin had heard that combination of sounds before. He jerked upright, eyes flashing open, a smile at his lips.

It was the girl.

Unable to master his magic sufficiently to ensure that he arrived at the gate with all limbs and clothes intact if he transported—it surely wouldn’t do to arrive naked, he sensibly thought—Rumpelstiltskin quickly clamored down the tree, leaping from branch to branch, ignoring the way the bark ripped at his scaled skin. With still fifteen feet to go, he dove to the ground, landed in a crouch, and scampered into the dense forest of the Dark Castle.

She was coming. This Belle.  _Belle French_.

He hadn’t sprinted this fast in years, leaping over logs and ravines. When he accidentally flew through a web of stinging nettle, he attempted to heal himself while running and accidentally blew up a resident rabbit’s hole.

“I’ll fix it later!” he promised the perplexed creature, not breaking his frenzied pace.

He got to the gate when the girl’s car was still a half mile down the windy mountain path. He plucked leafs and twigs out of his frayed hair and tried to smooth it down (a futile endeavor—and what was the point?), tried to master his labored breathing (also futile—and, again, he thought irritably, point?), and clenched his fists to keep his fingers from jittering about (the jitters simply transferred to his toes).

Putting on an air of lazy nonchalance as best he could, he leaned against the bars and waited for the girl to arrive. When she was a quarter mile away, he abruptly glared at the coin. “Shut up!” he growled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The coin said nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin gasped in horror. “Of course not! I could care less about the silly halfwit child! I’m simply glad that I have someone else to talk with besides you, you lugubrious lump of mangy metal!”

And her rundown blue car came into view.

Rumpelstiltskin stopped breathing. He felt his fingers tighten on the bars. Felt his guts yank this way and that like a fish on a hook.

What was wrong with him?

Her eyes were on his as she parked and turned off the ignition, and he strained against the gate when she got out.

She was more beautiful than sun, sunrise, sunset, and moon. Had her eyes been that blue before? Had her hair caught the light like webs catch dew? Had she smelled like this, like the floral paths of the forest after rain? Had she been this…this  _perfect_  before?

The car door slamming shut punched through Rumpelstiltskin’s mind and the Dark One clawed itself into being.

“If you’d rung ahead, dearie,” he called, “I’d have arranged a feast for you. But as is, we’ll have to make do with wind and air.” He paused dramatically, a finger on his chin in mock contemplation. “Unless of course you come inside. Then  _you_  could offer the feast!”

She could  _be_  the feast, and he knew Belle had caught his meaning when she shivered.

 _Yes, fear me!_  one voice inside him cried while another wailed,  _Don’t leave!_

She didn’t.

She took a step forward. Then another. Slow, measured steps, bringing her ten feet from the gate. The darkness in him was restless, howling and banging when she stopped, tasting her scent in the air and writhing with need.

 _Run!_  he wanted to shout. And,  _Come! Come to me!_

“Before I come closer,” she said, “I need to ask you a question.”

“Yes, yes! Ask away, dearie!”

She swallowed, and his eyes crept down to her neck, tracing the gentle arch, resting on her fast pulse and the jugular vein.

“Will you kill me if I stay?”

The frenzy erupted.

He threw himself against the gate, heard the clang of metal, saw her flinch. The voices were rising! Rising!

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee! He in love with she!_

“Am I safe?”

 _No! No!_  a high voice shrilled inside him.  _She’s his! His!_

He could barely hear her mild voice over the whirlwind inside him.

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee! He must weepy-wee-wee!_

She took another step forward and there was still enough of him inside to flinch backwards, his lip curling in warning.

“Will you hurt me?” she repeated. “Because I would like to stay and talk.” Yet another step forward. “I don’t want to leave.”

He froze. The frenzy froze. Sudden and profound.

“You—” His voice was low. “You want to stay? With me?”

She gave him a small smile. “Yes, I would like that. But only if I’m safe. Am I?”

 _No! She’s HIS!_  the voice howled, but it was muted, powerless. Rumpelstiltskin was stronger. He was in control. He swallowed. “I…I think so.” He clenched his jaw. “At least for now.”

Belle nodded. “Okay. I can work with that.”

She wasn’t leaving. She was staying. Rumpelstiltskin felt a surge of warmth course through his black blood and bones, purging the darkness within, forcing it back, and he felt a smile pull at the corner of his lips. “You won’t go?”

“Not as long as you behave.”

He felt a spark of mischief dance along his limbs. “So no skinning children for their pelts?”

Belle narrowed her eyes. “What do you think?”

He giggled and clapped his hands with glee.

“This time, though, can you maybe warn me before you turn all homicidal again so that I can leave without dying?” she asked, and he felt a stab of panic at the thought of her leaving. Without conscious thought, his body pressed against the iron bars, for once with a different kind of hunger.

But what was he thinking? She should leave, he realized. He wasn’t safe. She wasn’t. The very blood in his veins was urging him to fulfill his oath, to kill Gold’s love, and he knew he would not always be able to keep himself back. It could happen at any moment. He could wake to find her dead at his hands, her blood in his gut.

Why did that image fill him with dark dread?

And even darker glee…?

He shuddered. He was just on the verge to tell her to run, to flee, to damn himself and set her free, when the king’s coin sitting in the dirt behind her flashed in the light.

Yes. Yes!

“Tell you what, dearie,” he said, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. “How about we make a deal.”

She raised a brow. “Oh?”

“I promise not to kill you today if you give me that coin.”

He pointed a talon at the metal, and as she went to pick it up, his fingers fluttered with anticipation. Yes, this would work. If he bound himself to a new deal, even one far weaker than his oath with Gold, he could control himself just enough to keep her safe, to make her stay.

And he’d get his coin back.

He felt a stir of something inside him when Belle touched his coin, holding it between her small fingers and studying it with a curious expression. The king’s coin was a little larger than a quarter, and Rumpelstiltskin wondered if she’d be able to make out the engravings on each side. Two hundred years ago, fresh from the treasury, it’d had the face of a bearded man with a crown on one side and three sheaves of wheat on the other. Now they were hardly visible.

“How old is this?” she asked.

 _Just give me the coin!_  he wanted to shout, needing to bind himself to the deal, to the safeguard.

“Ah-ah-ah,” he sang in refusal, pushing against the bars and stretching out his hand. “That wasn’t part of the deal, dearie.”

She frowned. “If I give this to you, does that mean you can harm me or anyone else with it?”

“What would I do, blind you all with its shiny surface?” he sarcastically asked, fighting to keep the admiration and irritation out of his voice, the former for her apparent astuteness, however misdirected, and the latter because he felt he was running out of time.

“Please answer the question,” she insisted.

He tore his eyes away from the coin to meet her own eyes. “It’s just a coin.”

His voice came out lower than usual, and a series of emotions passed over her face: shock then wonderment then unease and finally a question.

“‘It’s just a cup,’” she quoted, voice distant. “He told me that once.”

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t need her to clarify that she meant Gold.

“I’d dropped a teacup and it had chipped,” she continued, taking a cautious step forward. “I apologized—I felt so embarrassed and nervous—and he looked at me, just like you did now. That same face.” Another step, brow furrowed. “That same tone.” And closer. “You’re him, but you’re not,” she whispered. “Who are you?”

Rumpelstiltskin was quiet for a moment then pointed to the coin in her hand. “We are one. Two sides, one whole.”

Belle opened her palm and the coin flashed in the light. “Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

“Ah, that depends.” Rumpelstiltskin pressed his face between the bars, taking on a teasing air. “Which one would I be?”

She caught on. “Oh, you’re Dr. Jekyll of course,” she said with a smile.

He giggled, clapping his green hands, while a small piece inside of him wished she’d said it in earnest, not in joke. Wished that he could be the good one, not the monster.

Wait, what?  _Not_  the monster?

The darkness inside shifted restlessly.  _Lies! LIES! She dies!_

And just like that, he felt himself losing control. The coin. He needed the coin!

_She’s his! HIS!_

“So,” Belle was thinking out loud as Rumpelstiltskin felt sweat bead on his forehead, “there’s two of you, aren’t there? Not just one body, but two?”

The coin was just out of reach. And he’d run out of time.

“He split us.” Frenzied rage started to boil up from his gut to his chest. “He betrayed us!” He felt himself shaking the bars violently, his body practically vibrating. “He tore us in TWO!”

Belle took two hurried steps forward, only a few feet away from the gate, and the monster inside him roared with satisfaction that she was so close, drowning out whatever of himself was still there. He felt a manic giggle start to gather in his throat, felt the chanting boil and seethe like gypsy’s fire.

“No, please!” Belle desperately said. “Stay with me!”

Her words were dim, the bedlam within screaming. The one spark of himself still burning against the darkness was keeping him from reaching out and dragging her close, from wrapping his hands about her throat.

_Yes! YES!_

His fingers twitched. “I told you not to come back,” he growled.

“Stay with me!” she pled again.

“You’re his!” He flung his body against the gate, mind howling at the clang of the lock keeping him a breath’s length from her skin. “HIS!”

“Please, I need you!” she cried.

She needed him.

As before, just as suddenly, everything stilled. The voices. His oath. His entire body.

“I need you,” she repeated.

She lifted a trembling hand and grabbed one of the bars, right below his own fist. He stared at it. Pale pink. Scaly green. Perfection. Darkness.

Then she carefully, oh so slowly, lifted one finger and brushed his skin.

It was the first time someone had touched him in two hundred years.

It was the lightest of touches—just the tip of her pale pink second finger on the tip of his green skin—but it burned deeper and hotter than any kiss of moonlight or bite of iron.

His eyes closed and a small whimper broke unbidden from his throat.

“Stay.”

The girl’s whispered word jarred him out of his daze and he jerked back, ripping his hand away. At the sudden movement, she also took a small step back. They stared at each other, on opposite sides of the fence, of worlds, human and faerie.

His eyes dipped to the piece of silver in her small hand. His muscles tensed. “The coin,” he managed to say. “I need it. It will…help.”

“Help?”

He nodded. “I am a creature bound by oaths. Our deal. It will help.”

“So I give you the coin and you’ll never want to kill me again?” she asked.

His eyes darkened. “‘Want’ wasn’t part of the deal, dearie. Nor was ‘never.’” His voice was rough. “Give me the coin, and I won’t kill you  _today_.”

She bit her lip and the sight made his skin tingle. “But the want? The need to…to kill me?” There was a crease in her brow. “It will still be there, won’t it?”

_An echo of a shrill shriek in his mind…_

“Always.”

“Okay.” She nodded sharply. “I’ll take today.”

She came close to hand the coin to him, and he jerked back. His mind was too raw to ensure her safety that close. “Flip it to me,” he murmured.

With a flash of an emotion he couldn’t name (was it sadness?), she tossed the coin through the bars of the gate and he snatched it from the air. Immediately, the shaking need drained from his fingers, hiding back in the depths of his gut. The very oxygen about him seemed to change its composition, floating free, not suffocating and compelling. He could feel his muscles relax, could taste her scent in the air without the howling in his mind. He was…himself. Rumpelstiltskin. Not the imp, not the demon. Just…him.

He hadn’t felt this way since Bae.

“Did it work?”

Belle’s quiet voice centered Rumpelstiltskin once more, and he met her eyes. “The deal,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It never said anything about not turning you into a snail, did it?”

She laughed, and he smirked.

“I’d take it as a professional courtesy if you allowed me to retain my human form, sir,” she said. “So what do I call you? I mean, last time you said you’re Mr. Gold, but you’re really not like him at all. You’re…different.”

“What gave it away.” He gestured to his face. “My fair complexion?”

“No, silly,” she said, smiling.

Did she just call him, the Dark One,  _silly_?

“I don’t care what you look like,” she continued before he could protest. “You just… _feel_ different from Mr. Gold. Last time you said you were a faerie. Is he a faerie, too?”

“He’s—” Rumpelstiltskin considered his words “—more human than not.”

A glimmer of excitement jumped in her eyes at getting her questions answered. “And there’s two of you, right?”

“There’s only one of us, but we are two bodies.”

“Have there always been two?”

“No.”

What siren magic was this, to make him answer each of her questions without pause? To calm the impossible frenzy within?

“What happened?” she asked.

“ _He_  made us this way,” Rumpelstiltskin snarled, and when she heard the darkness in his tone, she came close and held him above the threatening chaos with the force of her blue, blue eyes. He tightened his grip around the coin in his palm. “He split us, split himself into his human form—” he pointed to the girl then to himself “—and faerie. It was deep, deep magic.” His lip curled. “Bad magic.”

“So you used to be one being, the faerie and human together.”

He nodded.

“And then Mr. Gold divided himself into two beings.”

He nodded again.

“But why would he do that?”

“Bae.”

The quiet word tore itself from Rumpelstiltskin’s heart. He hadn’t said that name out loud in centuries. He hadn’t even thought of it in ages until today. And now the name was sitting out in the open, cold and dead and flat. If he could, he’d pick the word back up, swallow it back down to the abyss, and forget it once more.

“What?” Belle asked.

Rumpelstiltskin turned his back on her. “We lost him. There’s nothing more to say.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, “I’m sorry.”

He glanced back. She looked sad. Pained. Was that what he looked like now? He shouldn’t. He was a faerie. He was the Dark One! He should revel in destruction. He should flirt with it. Not mourn!

Cracking open the door to the chaos in his mind, he let a taste of its frenzy fill his blood as he danced back to the gate and gave a small, manic giggle. “So is that what brought the pretty lady back to my lair, eh? Trying to learn the monster’s weaknesses?” He jiggled a finger in front of her face.

“No, I—” She broke off with a noisy sigh. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“And I was the logical choice?” he asked, hands fluttering uselessly.

This was indeed a very strange girl. Usually people hunted down the monsters in the shadows with pitchforks and torches. They didn’t go to them for help.

“There’s no one else I can talk to,” she said. “Mr. Gold,  _my_  Mr. Gold, he’s—something’s wrong.”

Of course. She hadn’t come to see  _him_. She’d come because of Gold.  _Her_  Mr. Gold. Oh, how he hated the way she’d said that. Rumpelstiltskin’s chest tightened and he felt…he felt…jealous?

His mind reared back at the thought, shoving it away.

“How connected are you?” she asked. “I mean, do you know what he’s done, who he sees, how he feels?”

“Not exactly,” Rumpelstiltskin said, not wishing to elaborate. He didn’t want to talk about Gold. He didn’t want to hear her tongue shape his name. Then again, he didn’t know what he _did_  want.

“A week ago, after I met you, I went to his shop and he wasn’t there.”

So Gold had a shop. How pathetic. (Rumpelstiltskin ignored the part inside him hanging on to every one of her words, aching to know how his human self lived each day.)

“He’s never not there in the morning.  _Never_ ,” Belle continued, stressing the word. “He’s always been there when I arrive.”

How sickeningly domestic. (He’d be there every morning, too, if he had this Belle girl to look forward to…)

“The place was completely trashed. And when I went to his house, he was—he wasn’t well.”

How…interesting. (Rumpelstiltskin leaned closer.)

“I’ve never seen him look so…cold. And then he fired me!”

“He can control fire?” Rumpelstiltskin shouted, gripping the bars. How had Gold learned magic? How had the girl escaped unharmed? Had he—

“Oh, no,” Belle quickly said with a laugh. “That means he let me go.”

“Go…where?”

“I used to work for him in the shop,” Belle said. “And now he won’t let me. He got rid of me. That’s what we mean by ‘fired.’”

Oh.

_Oh._

Gold had let her go.

“He even threatened to call the police on me if I didn’t leave!”

_He’d let her go!_

A part of Rumpelstiltskin gloated. He’d made Gold suffer without even killing the girl. It was clear what had happened. Rumpelstiltskin had threatened to kill anyone Gold loved. So in a pointless effort to protect the girl, Gold had pushed her away. Did Gold not know that he was already in love with the girl and that her death was thus fated? That the oath was already in effect and her life thereby forfeit, regardless of how close he kept her now?

“And now he won’t leave his house,” the girl was saying. “He’s completely ignored the shop, he won’t answer the door, and he didn’t even collect rent today even though it’s the fourth Tuesday of the month. He  _always_  collects rent. Everyone in town is simultaneously thrilled and freaked out.”

Something about Belle’s description was bothering Rumpelstiltskin. Gold collected rent? He was some sort of landowner, not a cowardly spinner? And—as it sounded—he actually _mattered_  to people? Lots of them? Could intimidate them? Who exactly had his human self become?

Curious of his other half in a way he’d never been, Rumpelstiltskin clung to his connection with Gold and dragged himself toward his human self’s consciousness.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Suddenly panicked, Rumpelstiltskin interrupted whatever Belle was going off on and let go the first shocked, loud, sure words that came to mind. “He’s dead.”

Belle’s voice froze. Her face paled and her eyes got teary. “Dead?” It was hardly a whisper. “But…I never—we never…”

Wait. That couldn’t be. Rumpelstiltskin’s brow furrowed. Gold had to be alive. A human can live without its faerie counterpart, but the faerie must have the human to survive. Otherwise it would be pulled back into the demon realm. The human was a lodestone for a faerie. If Gold had died, Rumpelstiltskin would have known.

Closing his eyes, Rumpelstiltskin followed the connection between him and Gold once more, and when he reached the end—the absolute  _abyss_  of nothingness—he dug deeper. He pushed, fought, shoved, and, suddenly, there was a wave of emotion—self-loathing, hatred, despair—that crashed against Rumpelstiltskin’s mind. He jerked backward as though he’d been hit by a physical wave and smiled with relief.

That was good. That was very good. Gold was still fighting.

“He’s—” Whatever Rumpelstiltskin was going to say disappeared when he opened his eyes to see Belle in tears, blankly staring at nothing in front of her.

Oh dear.

“Um…” He waved his hands uselessly. “Little girl?”

Her eyes focused on his face. “He’s really gone?”

“Of course not,” he said, voice too shrill. Why was this woman always getting all teary-eyed!

“He’s not?”

“He’s only mostly dead,” Rumpelstiltskin pronounced.

Her lip quivered again. “ _Mostly_?”

“I mean not at all,” he quickly corrected. “More deadened.” Still tears. “Not dead.”

Her face slowly brightened. “So he’s alive?”

“There are very few things that could kill him, dearie. He’s made it two hundred years without offing himself. I’m sure he can make it a few more.”

And then, without warning, she punched him on the arm. She reached through the bars and actually  _punched_ him. Him. The Dark One!

“What the devil’s pot of—”

“You scared the living daylights out of me!” she nearly shouted, eyes narrowed. “You can’t just say things like that—‘he’s dead’—”

She said the two words in a high voice with a flutter of her hand that had him opening his mouth in complaint at her pathetic imitation of him before she carried on like the force of nature he was quickly learning she was.

“—without actually knowing if it’s true or not! And what do you mean by two hundred years?”

His head was spinning. “Two hundred what?”

“He’s really two hundred  _years_?”

“No,” he snorted. “Of course he’s not two hundred years.” She nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but Rumpelstiltskin continued, “We’re well over three thousand years old.”

“What?!”

Rumpelstiltskin smirked as she spluttered her disbelief.

“And I thought a couple of decades would be hard to explain to my dad!” she cried.

“Explain what, dearie?”

She blushed. “Oh, um, nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yup,” she said, falsely bright. “You know, I forgot. You never did tell me your name. Didn’t you say something about the ‘Dark One’ last time I was here?”

This woman was the strangest creature he’d ever met. And after the deserts of Egypt, the wilds of the Mayans, and the ice magic of the Piktuf in the North, that was truly saying something.

But he might as well answer her question. Like he’d done all of her other questions. Damnation! He was like a puppy!

“The Dark One is our daimon name,” he explained, “the title handed down to us from the first Dark One, the first master of darkness in heaven and hell and all in between.”

Belle’s eyes were riveted on him and wide with interest. He’d forgotten how much he craved humans’ fascination and fear of him, forgot what it was like for someone to hang on his every words, so he milked it for all its worth.

He crept up to the gate, leered with all his rotten teeth, and continued in a low, menacing tone. “We were the most powerful creature in all seven realms, master of all those bound to dark magic, of the fallen, of the desperate souls of those once man. We were the keepers of the gates of hell, the guardians of the magic words and signs. We controlled legions. Fire, water, earth, and air bowed to us. We were bloodlust and greed and lust and panic, and we ruled the chaos, reveled in it, letting its strength bind our bones and pump our blood. We were mighty. Invincible. Feared. Free.”

“And now?” Belle whispered.

How could those two words hurt so much? Rumpelstiltskin let the iron bars hold him up, felt its burn sink under his skin with an unquenchable fire and itch.

“And now,” he repeated.

They were silent for a moment, a weary Dark One pressing against his cage, a quiet Belle studying his face and hands and hair.

She jumped when something in her pocket suddenly vibrated, and Rumpelstiltskin jerked upright, calling magic to his fingers to defend her against whatever this bizarre pocket-demon was.

“Oh!” she said, clawing the thing out.

Rumpelstiltskin was on the verge of blasting the black thing out of her hands when he saw her manipulate the object with practiced ease, looking at its surface that glowed with light like a seer stone. His muscles slowly loosened but they tensed again when Belle frowned.

“I’m so sorry, Dark One—”

Why did he suddenly hate hearing that title on her lips? Why did he yearn for her to speak his given name?

“—but I need to go.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I need to take my dad to the hospital.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s ears perked up. “Is he ill?”

“Has been. For a while.”

He could see the weariness, the sadness in her eyes, in her smile. If he were free, he could help her. He might be able to heal her father, wipe the sadness away, make her—

 _No._  He was the Dark One. The monster. The demon. He didn’t heal. He destroyed.

“Thanks for talking though,” she said with another smile, a happier one, he noted, and he felt his chest tighten.

“You’re leaving?” he asked, hating himself at how it sounded more like a whimper than a question.

“I’ll be back,” she promised.

He took a step back. “No. You won’t.”

“I will,” she insisted. “How does tomorrow sound?”

He said nothing. She wouldn’t come. Why would she? How could she be different from everyone else?

“Tomorrow,” she firmly said with yet another of her smiles. “I promise.”

She turned around and started for her car, and Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t help himself from pushing back against the gate, a “wait” breaking from his mouth.

She glanced back at him. “Yes?”

“Rumpelstiltskin.”

“What?”

“Our name.” He licked his lips. “Our name is Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Like the imp from the story?” Belle asked, nose crinkling.

Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes. “That was all just a huge misunderstanding! Leave it to history to remember  _that_  story!”

“You were hoping for more of a doom-and-gloom story with a city full of humans transformed into snails?” Belle asked, a little too amused for his taste.

“Something like that,” he muttered.

She laughed.

And, oh, why did he crave that sound so much?

“Tomorrow then, Rumpelstiltskin—”

_His name. His true name. On her lips._

“—I promise.”

Then she was gone.

Rumpelstiltskin stayed at the fence, listening to her journey back down the mountain in her blue contraption. At one moment, miles down the path, she slammed on her brakes, and Rumpelstiltskin felt his chest leap and pound, and he strained against the iron, willing her to be fine, to be unharmed. His chest didn’t quiet until he heard her continue driving, and his muscles didn’t unwind until the sound of her car had vanished entirely, lost to the distance between them. He sighed.

“Guess it’s just the two of us again, coin-boy,” he said, opening his palm where he’d been clinging to his silver coin since the moment Belle had handed it to him. He’d been holding it so tightly, in fact, willing the deal bound to its return to keep him in control, that its shape and image was imprinted on his palm.

Rumpelstiltskin knelt on the ground next to the black brick column to which the gate’s hinges were bolted. With a trickle of magic, one of the bricks disappeared, leaving a small alcove, and he cautiously and carefully placed the silver coin inside.  

“Tomorrow,” he whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: ten days, nine deals, one faerie falling in love. (Check out my tumblr page for an awesome cover made by midstorm.)

Belle kept her promise.

She came back the next day. And the day after that. And the next, and the next. Nine days in total and nine deals. Each time an item was exchanged for her life, deals just strong enough to keep Rumpelstiltskin from succumbing to his blood oath and murdering her on the spot. He kept each day’s item in its own alcove, disappearing bricks from the gate wall as needed.

Tonight, Rumpelstiltskin was at his usual spot at the gate, waiting for Belle’s tenth visit. He ran his eyes over the nine treasures he’d accumulated thus far.

_Day 1, 1 brick’s width: the king’s coin._

Their first deal.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rumpelstiltskin growled with a sidelong glance at the coin. “I like the view. That is all. My sitting here at the gate has nothing to do with the silly girl.”

The coin said nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin gasped. “Absolutely not! Leave all the mooning to my human half, thank you very much!” He sniffed importantly. “I am a faerie and thus impervious to such flimsy, flighty emotions. Now cease your ludicrous prattling, you silver-tongued git.”

The coin did.

_Day 2, 2 bricks’ width: a handful of wildflowers._

In all truth, he’d been so shocked when she’d kept her promise and returned, that he hadn’t known what to demand for his second deal. So he’d claimed the first thing he’d laid eyes on.

“Those,” he’d said, pointing with a black talon to the patch of blue and red wildflowers across the road.

For two centuries, he’d sat in his cage and glared at that small patch, watching it bloom and blossom each summer. There were plenty of flowers and nice green things within the grounds of the Dark Castle, but that patch was different. That patch was _free_. And just out of reach. He’d always longed to smell them, to see if the free flowers smelled freer than those imprisoned alongside him.

“You want a bunch of flowers?” Belle had asked him with a puzzled smile. She’d probably been expecting quarts of baby’s blood or fingernails from a dead man.

“What does it matter to you what I want?” Rumpelstiltskin had self-consciously protested. “I could always kill you if you prefer.”

“No, no, the flowers will do,” she’d said, and when she’d passed a handful through the bars to him, he’d snuck one furtive sniff before vanishing them out of her sight.

Yes. They smelled much, much nicer, especially with the small undercurrent of Belle’s scent that lingered where her fingers had touched the stems.

And that day, after she was safe from his demons, Belle had sat crossed-legged in front of the gate and told him with bright smiles and vibrant words how she’d ended up in Storybrooke, how she’d been born in Australia, how her father had moved the two of them here after her mother had died when she was ten, how her father had opened a florist shop and how she’d helped him out every day after school. She told him how she’d planned on going to a place called Yale University on a thing called a scholarship—

_(which Rumpelstiltskin could only guess was a boat set aside for scholars and thereby confirmed his suspicions that this Belle girl was intelligent)_

—but that she’d had to stay here to take care of her father. She’d explained to him that he was very ill (cancer, she’d called it) and that she’d taken the job with Mr. Gold to make a bit of extra money to help pay for the medical bills.

“Papa had a good night yesterday,” she’d said, nodding her head as though to convince herself that yes, he did indeed have a good night, that yes, he was getting better.

Rumpelstiltskin could only sit there and nod as well.

Then she’d blinked and laughed. “I’m sorry, I must be boring you!”

He’d never been more enchanted in hundreds of years.

After she’d left, he’d put a protection spell over the flowers and reverently laid them to rest in an alcove next to the coin’s. If he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply from his place at the gate, he could catch their scent—and _her_ scent—on the wind’s wings.

_Day 3, 1 brick’s width: a dainty blue button._

When one of her sweater buttons had caught in the door of her car on the third day and snapped off, he’d instantly known what his deal would be for that day.

“Your button,” he’d said, pointing to the baby blue button on the ground that matched the blue on her sweater and reminded him of (but could never match) the perfect, crystalline, free-sky blue of her eyes.

“Ah, so you’re the faerie of stolen buttons, are you?” she’d asked with teasing look.

“Absolutely not.” He’d screwed his face in disgust at being connected with such a lowly job. “That’s Frakkashaka of the Far North.”

Which of course Belle hadn’t been able to ignore, so he’d found himself recounting the tales of Frakkashaka and her button-stealing plights, and how he’d turned her into a snail (and oh, did Belle have a hay-day with that!) when she’d gone back on a deal with him a millennia ago.

He could still remember the way Belle had hung on every word he’d spoken, her cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming in her excitement.

_Day 4, 2 bricks’ width, 2 bricks’ height: a loaf of bread._

The next day, Belle had brought something of her own to deal with.

“I got it from Granny’s right before I left,” she’d said, taking off a smallish chunk for herself then handing the rest over to him. “It’s still warm!”

He’d taken it gingerly, sniffing it distrustfully. He’d hardly eaten anything in the past two centuries, much less human food. Had food really smelled like this back then? Earth and yeast and heat?

“What is it?” he’d asked, curling his lip.

She’d giggled. “It’s bread, silly!”

“Faeries don’t need food to survive,” he’d declared.

And then his belly had growled—the traitor!—for the first time in ages, and she’d laughed again.

“Try it,” she’d urged, eyes bright with anticipation as she popped a piece in her own mouth.

So he’d followed her example, torn off a segment, put it in his mouth, and chewed. And, oh, demons’ horns! What had he been missing these past two hundred years? He’d forgotten the explosion in his mouth, the tingling senses and flooding saliva that came with food like this. He forgotten just how much he’d loved human food.

“So?” she’d asked.

He’d chewed some more and swallowed. “Not half as good as eating babies,” he’d quipped, and she’d giggled.

He hadn’t been able to hide his smile then.

However much he’d wanted to swallow down the rest of the bread, he’d forced himself to save most of it, preserving it after she’d left. He crawled over to it now and tore off a small pebble’s worth of bread, placing it on his tongue and letting it sit there until it grew soggy and almost nasty, then he swallowed it down, carefully picking up a crumb from his lap and licking it up.

She’d brought him some food every time she came now, but none tasted as good as the one he’d dealt for. That thing she’d called ice cream came close, but never close enough.

_Day 5, 2 bricks’ width: a cup of tea._

She’d provided the next deal, too: teatime. And Rumpelstiltskin had preserved that as well. He carefully pulled the china cup out of its alcove and dipped a finger into its still steaming liquid, licking the drops from his talon.

When he’d first seen that she’d brought a pretty little tea set with her, he’d felt a black rage rumbling inside him. What sort of demon from hell had tea with blue-eyed beauties? If anyone ever found out that he, Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One, had had something as prim and proper as _teatime_ , he’d lose his reputation in the flick of a tail. The monsters of Hades would laugh at him, the black faeries would refuse to bow to his name, and the desperate souls would think themselves a little less desperate. It’d kill his deal-making. And his image.

_I’m just gaining her trust so that I can kill her more easily_ , he’d argued in his head.

But he knew a weak lie when he heard one, and his was the weakest of all. For with each cup he had with her over the following days, he found it more and more difficult to even fathom seeing her blood on his hands…

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee!_

One moment of weakness. Just one.

Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes.

_He in love with she!_

That’s all it would take.

_He must weepy-wee-wee!_

The furor was always there, always calling and beckoning him to embrace it once more, to lower his shields for just the splittest of seconds and fall to craze and rage and pitch.

He gripped the iron of the gate and let its sting sear the madness out of his breast. He’d not succumb. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t, now.

Rumpelstiltskin clenched his jaw so hard he heard tooth grind against tooth, and opened his eyes on the next alcove to calm himself down.

_Day 6, 1 brick’s width: a blue ribbon._

It had been a quiet, peaceful day. When she’d gotten out of her blue car, a stray stroke of wind had blown one of her curls free from her ponytail, and it had stubbornly clung to her face no matter how many times Belle had tried to brush it away. He’d thought it cute.

_Cute? Cute!_ the Dark One had screamed.

He ignored that voice and asked Belle for her blue hair ribbon.

“Planning on making a blue overcoat now that you have my blue ribbon and button?” she’d asked as she’d handed it over, the slight wind blowing two more strands over her cheeks.

“Demons don’t wear blue,” he’d growled.

And, of course, she’d laughed.

That had also been the first day she’d sat with her back against the gate instead of sitting a good two feet away. And she’d sat there staring at the sky, telling him the stories she could read in the clouds, as his own eyes were Belle-bound, catching every eyelash, every flicker, every twitch, every stubborn curl.

That night, after she’d gone, he’d slept up on the highest bough of the highest oak, making out the shapes and faces of the starry sky and guessing what sort of story Belle would tell. He’d told them out loud to himself, his very own bedtime story, as he’d rocked his lithe frame to an easy, blue-eyed sleep.

He’d barely even noticed the nearly full moon’s sting on his skin that night.

The next night, not so much.

_Day 7, 3 bricks’ width: a leather-bound book._

It’d been the evening of the full moon, and even though Belle had come when the light was still bright and the birds still singing, he’d sensed the moon’s closeness, its influence. It’d been yanking at the feeble strands he’d formed between himself and his little deals with Belle, trying to pull them loose and once more demand justice for the blood oath he’d sworn on that black night so very long ago.

_I will kill anyone you ever love!_

The voices inside him had been chanting, screaming, and when she’d arrived, he’d been curled up in a little ball, pressed against the iron gate whose sting had given him the only anchor to reality he could find.

“Belle, go,” he’d rasped.

“Rumpelstiltskin!” she’d exclaimed, running over to him. When she’d reached a hand through the bars to touch him, to see if he was all right, he’d acted on impulse and seized her hand, yanking her closer until he had his spare hand clenched tightly around her neck, his talons at her jugular vein, a millimeter from piercing her through.

He’d snapped out of it almost just as quickly, flinching back and dropping down into a small ball of agony once more.

_One more split second, just one, and she would have died…_

_Yes! YES!_ cried one voice inside.

“No,” he’d moaned out loud, closing his eyes against her shocked (and _hurt_ ) expression, against the bloodlust boiling in his veins. “Belle, _go_! It’s too strong today.”

But she’d refused to go. She’d sat down—a safe two feet from the gate, he’d noticed—and pulled out a leather-bound, well-used book. Rumpelstiltskin had been able to smell the age on its pages as she opened it to the first page.

“How about a stronger deal today, Rumple,” she’d whispered.

“Rumple?” he’d repeated, furrowing his sweaty brow and cracking one eye open.

She’d made a quiet assenting sound. “Rumpelstiltskin is such a mouthful. I hope you don’t mind.”

He’d said nothing.

“For today’s deal,” she’d continued, “I’ll read out loud to you today and on every day I visit, as long as you want me to do so. Will that work?”

He’d pushed his broken mind—

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee! She be so near-y, nee-nee!_

—to test its limits, and felt the length of her deal, its magnitude, settle like a cooled bandage over his burning brain.

He’d nodded.

And she’d read, some tale of a beautiful woman who exchanged her freedom for her father’s life, willingly living with a beast.

_Stupid woman_ , he’d thought before falling asleep at some point, lulled by Belle’s clear voice. When he’d awoken the next day, fever-free, he’d found a small blanket over his shoulders (it was blue, go figure) and the book at his feet.

Rumpelstiltskin had asked her to read every visit since then, and every night, even when it was too warm, he’d slept with that blanket around him. It smelled like her, and he found that he slept sounder, more calmly, with it.

_Day 8, 1 brick’s width: the pebble from her shoe._

The next day had been much, much better. The moon had been waning once more, and he’d been able to think above the madness itching and yowling to burrow free.

“What’s the deal to be today?” she’d asked as she sat down (only a foot away from the gate, he’d noticed) and untied her shoe to dig out an offending pebble.

He’d pointed. She’d looked at the pebble in her hand. She’d arched her brow in disbelief. “Really?” she’d asked. “A pebble?”

“I’m feeling better,” he’d said, smirking, but internally needing her to know that yes, she was safe, that yes, he was sorry for yesterday, that yes, this could work, that no, she didn’t have to leave.

So a pebble it was.

But something had been wrong. He’d been able to sense it in the way the glimmer hadn’t quite reached her eye. In the laughs that had cut off too quickly. He’d thought it was his fault, and he’d pressed more and more of his skin against the iron bars as he could, punishing himself for his weakness yesterday during the full moon.

“Are you…angry at me?” he’d finally asked, unable to look her in the eyes.

“Oh, no! Of course not, Rumple!” she’d quickly responded.

“You’re lying,” he’d darkly said.

“I am not!” she’d huffed, as though offended that he even thought her capable of lying. And, as though to prove it, she’d even dared to place one of her hands over his.

It had been the most skin-to-skin contact he’d ever had, and the touch had burned him deeper, brighter, and better than any kiss of iron ever could. He’d lifted his head, found her watching him with an apology written on her face.

“I’m sorry, Rum, but—”

First Rumple, now Rum?

“—it’s my father.” She’d sighed, her hand falling to her lap once more. “He’s back in the hospital and without the extra income from working at Mr. Gold’s shop, I…”

Her voice had trailed off and Rumpelstiltskin’s first thought was of the piles and piles of golden thread filling the Dark Castle. In the first five decades of his captivity, all he’d done every day all day was weave and weave, forget and forget some more, until one day, the straw had run out, along with any desire to do anything about it.

That was the day he’d left the Dark Castle, and he hadn’t placed a foot inside since then.

But as quickly as he’d thought of the gold, he’d felt the roaring helplessness sweep through him because he knew anything endowed with his magic could never cross the boundary. He had all the gold in the world and couldn’t help the single person in the universe he’d ever wanted to help.

“I’m—” the human word stuck in his faerie mouth “— _sorry_ , Belle.”

And with those words, whatever it was about them (her name, spoken on his tongue for the first time? the sincerity? the—dare he say— _humanity_ of them?), she braved a smile and her eyes even grew moist.

_Stop the crying! No crying!_ an alarmed voice shouted inside him.

So he’d done the first, craziest thing that came to mind. He’d twirled his hand and the prettiest, reddest, most fragrant rose on the grounds of the Dark Castle appeared in his hand in a swirl of purple smoke.

“For you, if you’ll have it,” he’d said with a gentleman’s, one-legged bow.

She’d laughed and curtsied. “Why thank you, good sir.”

And he’d pressed his palms together and rested his lips on his fingers, feeling like he’d swallowed a butterfly. What a strange thing to feel, he’d thought.

Maybe he couldn’t help her. But he’d been able to make her laugh and curtsy. Perhaps that would be enough.

_Day 9, 1 brick’s width: a kiss._

The ninth alcove was empty. And it was his most treasured. It held only a memory.

It’d started to rain as soon as Belle had arrived yesterday. There was nowhere outside of the castle gates except her car that could provide sufficient shelter from the storm, and that had been the last place Rumpelstiltskin had wanted her to go. With a flick of his wrist, the gate had swung open with a squeak, and with a snap of his fingers, the tall oaks inside the property bent closer, twining their branches together. Within a few seconds, he’d blocked out all the rain.

It was only when he’d turned to Belle to ask her to step inside out of the rain that the magnitude of what he’d done hit him.

He was asking her to come inside. To leave the safety of there and enter the danger of here. He’d instantly frozen, staring wide-eyed at Belle as she was being drenched by the rain.

“I—I—” he’d stammered.

And she’d looked at him with her beautiful blue eyes, teeth worrying her lower lip, and slowly crossed the threshold.

“Thank you, Rum,” she’d whispered.

He’d managed only a nod.

She trusted him. With her life. She was here. With him. And only him. Not the faintest stir of the madness could be heard. Only him.

“What shall we deal today?” she’d asked, voice still quiet, blouse and pants clinging to her skin, and brown hair hanging limply at her shoulders. He’d wanted to lick the droplets of water off her skin.

But he’d only shaken his head. Completely powerless.

Keeping her eyes on his to gauge his every emotion, she’d cautiously crept closer and closer until she’d been close enough to duck up on her tiptoes and place a small, gentle kiss on his scaled cheek. His eyes had snapped closed.

“How’s that for a deal?” she’d whispered.

He’d only been able to nod.

Then, “I’m sorry, Rumple, but I have to leave early today. Papa’s…well, he’s not doing so well.”

He’d opened his eyes, then, and all he’d wanted to do was smooth out her brow, to solve all her problems, to give her something, anything, to make it all go away. And there were words, strange words, stirring in his chest and making his stomach feel funny and his mind whoozy, but he didn’t know how to speak them. He didn’t even know what the words were.

So all he’d been able to do was nod for a third time.

She’d smiled. “Goodbye, Rum.”

“Goodbye, Belle,” he’d managed to say only once she’d ran through the rain to the safety of her car and pulled away.

And now it was Day 10 and Rumpelstiltskin still hadn’t seen Belle. As he absentmindedly rubbed his cheek where the ghost of her kiss still tingled, he looked up at the sky and frowned. It was getting dark. She almost always came before now. He stayed at the gate, ears perked up for the sound of a car with a wheezy complaint on each incline and an atrocious grinding between gears. But there was nothing. Minute after minute. It got darker and darker. And no Belle.

Finally, Rumpelstiltskin sat on the ground, too weak to hold up his suddenly heavy heart.

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee!_

He closed his eyes. He hadn’t heard the chanting surface in days.

_Everyone leave you, lonely-lee-lee!_

No. He shook his head. No! She’d be back. She’d promised. She’d come!

Right?

Wistful, he searched the night air for her presence and jerked upright. Alongside the black chain that bound him to Gold, he sensed another one, a free-sky blue chain.

“Belle,” he whispered.

Closing his eyes, he pulled himself hand over hand along the blue chain. It felt warm, so unlike the chill of Gold’s chain. And when he reached the end, he felt everything inside him fall.

She was in pain.

“Belle!” he cried, leaping to his feet and pounding against the gate. “Belle!”

She was afraid, terribly so, and something was so terribly, terribly wrong.

“BELLE!” he screamed over and over and over, spittle flying from his mouth as he flung himself over and over and over against the iron gate. “No!” He backed up five feet and summoned fireball after fireball, throwing each one against his prison door. “NO!”

Finally, spent, he collapsed to his hands and knees. “Belle,” he choked.

He was crying. He felt hot tears sear his skin as it trailed down his cheeks. He hadn’t cried since Bae, but he couldn’t stop. Belle was in pain. She was in trouble. And he couldn’t help her. He was helpless.

_Gold._

Yes, Gold.

Rumpelstiltskin whipped his eyes closed again and desperately flung himself down the path of the black chain, Gold’s chain. When he reached the end, felt the bleakness there, he kicked and pushed and bit and scratched.

“She needs you!” he hollered. “She needs you, you bastard! And you are free to help her! HELP HER!”

There was no response.

“Help her,” he sobbed.

Still, nothing.

So he clung to Belle’s pain, made it his own, and waited.

And waited.

xxx

Belle got the call an hour before she closed the shop. She didn’t even bother turning the sign to “closed.” She just ran and ran. Even though she already knew it was too late.

When she broke through the hospital doors, panting and sobbing, Dr. Whale was there at the counter reviewing a chart. He set it down.

“I’m so sorry, Belle,” he whispered.

She bit her lip. “Can I—” she broke off. Swallowed. “Can I see him?”

A nurse started to make her way to Belle, but Dr. Whale held out a hand. “I’ll take her,” he quietly said, and the nurse backed away, barely able to hold in her own tears. She saw death every day. But this one was especially hard. On all of them. Belle had been bringing in her father since her early teens. They’d all seen her grow up into the bright, cheerful, lovely lady she was now. They’d all become part of her family.

And now one of their own had died.

“This way, Belle,” Dr. Whale said, placing a hand in the small of her back, guiding her to the room. She paused just outside and gripped Dr. Whale’s arm for strength.

“Was there any pain?” she asked. A child’s question from the dark.

“No Belle. He was asleep when he went. Do you want me to…?” Dr. Whale gestured to the room.

“No. Thank you.” She fought a smile to her lips. “I’d like to be alone with my papa one last time.”

“I’ll be here if you need me Belle.” Dr. Whale swallowed. “We’ll all be here.”

She mouthed a second “thank you” and made the last four, brave steps alone.

He looked peaceful and pain-free, for that she was grateful. She hadn’t seen him like that in far too long. Tears clouded her vision as she sat down next to him. She grabbed his hand and held it against her cheek.

It was still warm.

She’d been so, so close to seeing him alive once more. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I love you, papa.” She bit her lip again. “And I’m going to miss you. A lot.” Another silence as she fought the sobs down. “But you’re with mommy now. Tell her hello for me. Tell her I miss her too.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Belle,” a suave voice said from the doorway.

Belle tensed.

_Please no. Oh god, no!_

“Not now, Gaston,” she murmured without looking up, pressing her cheek against her father’s hand and willing him to get back up, to protect her like he’d always done before.

“I wish it were that easy, Belle,” Gaston said.

Belle whipped her head up. “Stop saying my name.”

“Temper, temper,” Gaston chided, smoothing a strand of black greased hair into place. He smiled his prize-winning, roguish smile. “I like that in a gal.”

“Leave now,” Belle lowly said.

Gaston’s smile just widened. “I think not.” He sat in the chair opposite her, propping his legs up on her father’s bed.

His mud-crusted boots. By her father’s cooling body.

Belle felt sick.

“I told you to—”

“Your father owes—excuse me— _owed_ me money, Belle,” Gaston interrupted coolly. “A lot of money.”

Belle shook her head. “No, he already paid his debts. He stopped gambling years—”

“Yes, years ago.” Another lazy smile as he inspected his fingernails. “That’s what they all say.”

Hot rage coursed through Belle’s blood at the insinuation. “He quit.”

“You’re right. He did.” Gaston let the words hang in the air, holding back the counter-words Belle knew were coming. “But—”

And there it was with his signature PR-grin.

“—not before accruing a _massive_ debt, Belle.”

“He paid it off,” Belle flatly said.

“No. He didn’t. And now that he’s—” Gaston gestured to her father’s still body, his _corpse_ “—well, you know, that debt rests on you.”

“Get out.”

“Belle, I don’t think you’re listening. You—”

“Get out!” Belle yelled. “Get out! Get out!”

“I think you should leave now, Mr. Dupont,” Dr. Whale said from the doorway, square jaw tight.

“This is none of your concern, Whale,” Gaston said.

“Get out of my hospital. Now. Or I’ll call security and have you escorted out,” Dr. Whale enunciated slowly, his pale blue eyes cold as ice.

Gaston looked from Belle to Dr. Whale and back to Belle. “Fine.” He leapt up on his cowboy boots. “I’ll go.” He dropped a folder on top of Belle’s father. “This is the list of debts owed. And Belle?”

She forced her eyes up from the folder to Gaston’s face.

“I have been known to—” his eyes darted down to her mouth and his grin turned into a leer “— _compromise_. If you’re interested, that is.”

With that, Dr. Whale lunged forward, grabbed Gaston by the shoulder, and hurled him into the hallway. There was loud shouting and crashes from the hallway, but Belle heard none of it. She only had room for the folder resting on her father’s still, cold body.

“Belle?”

She glanced up. It was Dr. Whale again with a few other of the nurses and doctors in the doorway.

“If you’re in some kind of trouble, we’ll help,” Dr. Whale said, and the others nodded.

Belle didn’t know what to say. But she knew she had to leave. Now. Before she suffocated on it all. She got up. Grabbed the folder. Looked over her father’s body once more. Realized it wasn’t him anymore. Realized he was gone. Just. Gone.

“I’ve got to go,” Belle murmured.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, sister?” Leroy, one of the janitors she’d become fond of, asked, concern clear on his rugged, bearded face.

“I have to,” Belle said, pushing her way through the people at the door.

“Wait,” Dr. Whale grabbed her arm. Whatever he saw in her expression made him drop it just as quickly. He sighed. “Call, Belle. If you need anything.”

“We’ll get in touch with the funeral home your father listed—don’t you worry about all that,” one of the lady nurses said, eyes red. “We’ll take care of it for you, dear.”

Belle managed a nod. She felt like everything was underwater. She turned to leave.

“We should call Ruby,” Belle heard someone whisper behind her.

“Yes. That’s a good idea,” Dr. Whale said.

Belle wasn’t even conscious of moving her legs. She just started moving and kept doing it. Eventually, she was out of the sterile hospital, out on the streets with cars and children and people. Some stopped to greet her, but she just keep walking. One tried to stop her. Asked what was wrong.

“My father’s dead,” she’d simply said.

And she’d kept going.

She didn’t stop until she was on the little steps to the living quarters behind the Game of Thorns. It was then that some of the numbness thawed and she felt like someone was squeezing her chest. Some great big giant. She couldn’t breathe.

“I can’t—I can’t—” she started to say before breaking into sobs, crumpling to the stairs, feeling the rough wood under her fingers. She couldn’t go inside. She couldn’t. Not where every turn, every surface would remind her of him. So she wept on the stairs, bent over and shaking like a child.

She didn’t know how long it took for the sobs to end, leaving her empty and glassy-eyed. And she didn’t know how much longer it took her to feel the folder in her hands, nor how much longer still it took for her to finally open it. And read.

What she did know was that she could never, ever repay a debt like that, not with the added medical bills piled on top of it all. Not for a very, very long time. She could sell the business, sell the home she’d lived in for fifteen years, and she’d still come up far short of the total…

Belle’s stomach convulsed and she’d barely made it off the stairs before vomiting.

He’d told her he’d paid the debt off. Her papa had sworn.

He’d lied.

That thought was even more bitter than the sour in her mouth.

Unable to cry any longer, Belle left the folder on the steps. She got into her car, turned it on, and drove to the one place she could think of.

The Dark Castle.

xxx

Rumpelstiltskin jerked upright.

She was coming.

She was okay.

He leapt up and clung to the bars, willing her car to go faster.

“Please,” he muttered. “Please.”

He said the word over and over, waiting for three miles to turn to one to turn to half to turn to a quarter. And then her car came into sight.

“Belle!” he cried, pushing himself against the iron until it was digging into his skin then pushing some more.

Every second it took for her to park and get out was an eternity until she was finally there, leaning against the bars like he was, her arms reaching through to grasp his arms, to hold her shuddering form still. He clung back, hating the bars that still kept them an inch apart.

“What’s wrong?” he frantically asked, using his magic to check every bone and ligament and cell. He sensed nothing wrong except for the acrid scent of vomit on her breath, so he checked again. And a third time.

“He’s gone,” she whispered, eyes closed as though the light of the stars and moon was too much to handle. “Just. Gone.”

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed. “Your father?”

She nodded.

Rumpelstiltskin had never wanted to be human before that moment. But he wanted to console her, and faeries didn’t know how to console. That was a human gift. He couldn’t help her. He wasn’t meant to.

Someone else was. Someone human.

“And…and a man came.” She shivered. “He’s…he’s not a good man, and he’s always liked me. Too much.”

In those two, trembling words was enough to make Rumpelstiltskin want to tear the man’s throat out, to protect Belle from him and keep her safe.

But he’d never be able to do that. He couldn’t.

“He owns a casino in town, and papa—he’s had his gambling problems in the past. But papa promised me he’d stopped, that he’d paid all his debts off. He promised.”

Rumpelstiltskin could feel her hot tears falling onto his hand.

“But this man—Gaston—he gave me a folder. With so many debts…” She sniffed. “I don’t know what to do, Rum. And I didn’t know where else to go.”

Rumpelstiltskin clung to her tighter as the realization that he could do absolutely nothing burned deep into his heart. He was completely powerless. He never had the right to associate with her. He never should have. He was faerie. She was human. He, the dark. She, the light.

It was not him she needed.

It was Gold.

Gold could protect her. Gold could get her the money she needed. She needed the human. Not the faerie. Never the faerie.

And so, Rumpelstiltskin knew what he’d have to do. And in that moment of truth, he felt something that scared him, that thrilled and killed him all in one instant.

His heartbeat had changed. Like Gold’s.

He was a faerie, and _his heartbeat had changed._

“Belle,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

It took a moment, but Belle opened her ever-so-blue eyes and met his own through the bars.

“You look like him,” she abruptly said in a quiet voice, brushing a hand through his straight brown hair.

It was only then that Rumpelstiltskin recognized the sting of moonlight on his skin. He looked down at his hands and saw flesh as human as Gold’s. He was wearing Gold’s suit, not the Dark One’s trappings. His voice was normal, low and slightly raspy. He touched the skin of his face with small, pink fingernails. The skin felt smooth to the touch, not cold and scaly.

Perhaps…?

_No_. Rumpelstiltskin leaned his face against the bars once more. The iron still burned. The outside could change. The inside, never. _He wasn’t human._

Gold was.

“I need you to do something for me, Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered. He summoned the king’s coin into his hand and pressed it into Belle’s hand. “I need you to give this to Gold.”

“But why?” she asked, searching his brown human-seeming eyes.

Rumpelstiltskin closed Belle’s hand over the coin. “He can help you. He will help you, if you give him the coin.”

And then he took a step backward. And another step. With each step, his heart shattered anew.

“Wait, Rum,” Belle said, holding out a hand to him, confusion on her face. “Please, I need you!”

He shook his head, feeling a tear fall down his cheek, matching those falling down Belle’s. “I can’t help you, Belle,” he admitted, the admission tearing his demon soul in half, into shreds.

“Please!” she cried.

“I was never meant to help,” he broke out, the tears coming more freely now. He pointed to himself. “I’m the Dark One, Belle. Darkness. Shadow and Night. The master of all those bound to dark magic, of the fallen, of the desperate souls—” he swallowed “—of those once man. I am power and might, chaos and craze. Destruction. I am the keeper of the gates of hell yet even hell fears my tread.”

Belle was pushing at the bars, crying, fighting. “Rumpelstiltskin, no!”

He stepped into the shadows of an oak and he felt the scaly green creep over his skin, felt the leather return once more, the rotten teeth, the talons. He stopped there, in the dark, raising his arms for her perusal.

“I’m a monster, Belle.” He steeled himself for the final words. “And you deserve something more than that.”

Then he vanished from sight.

_“Rumpelstiltskin!”_

He never expected to see her again.

_“Rumpelstiltskin! No! Please! I need you!”_

And that thought had never felt more human than anything he’d ever felt before.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle returns to Gold. Gold pays a visit to Rumpelstiltskin.

_ [Trigger warning: there is a brief mention of suicidal thoughts. It’s part of the story (Gold knows that if he dies, Rumpelstiltskin would die as well) but it’s still there.] _

* * *

Gold was in the process of packing when he heard a knock at the front door. He ignored it. He’d ignored every knock, every doorbell, every phone call and mailman since he’d last spoken with Belle seventeen days ago.

_“You’re fired.”_

Gold’s eyes slipped closed as he remembered the hurt and shock he’d seen on Belle’s face—hurt that had deepened with what he’d said next:

_“I don’t want you anymore, dearie.”_

Those words were ash on his tongue. They haunted him, tormented him, sunk their poisoned tendrils under his skin and in his blood and brain and soul. Of all the words he’d said in his life, he hated these ones most.

Gold gripped the edge of the suitcase on his bed as the memory continued to play out in his mind.

_“And if you don’t leave these premises now, I will have Sheriff Graham arrest you.”_

Belle had been speechless. She’d been confused. He’d kept going. He’d threatened her with the police if she ever came to the shop. He’d interrupted her when she’d started to speak, wishing her a cool ‘good day’ before slamming the door in her face—her frightened, hurt, and oh ( _he gripped the suitcase even tighter_ ) so, so beautiful face. And then he had wept.

There was another knock at the door—more urgent this time—and Gold opened his eyes. A gaunt face with unkempt hair and whiskers looked back at him from the mirror on his dresser. He looked dead. He _felt_ dead. No. Worse. He felt _deadened_. He hurt too much to be dead. But he didn’t feel alive either.

More knocking. He cleared his throat. And continued to pack. Mr. Gold was leaving Storybrooke.

This was the second time in seventeen days Gold had started to pack his bags to leave. The first time had been after he’d turned Belle away. His very presence risked her life. What if he saw her on the street one day, fell madly in love with her _(his mind cried that it was an impossibility, his heart whispered that it’d be so easy to fall)_ , and thereby doomed her to her death at the hands of his damned faerie self? He couldn’t take that risk. The very thought that she was somewhere in the city, mere miles away, made his skin itch. Leaving, he’d decided, was the only option.

But then he’d decided to stay because of an equally immobilizing fear: what if Rumpelstiltskin got bored one day and decided to kill Belle for sport? The imp knew her name now. It knew that she was a part of Gold’s life, or, at least, that she used to be. It knew she meant something to Gold, however much he’d weakly claimed otherwise. So even if Gold did leave Storybrooke, Belle would still be in danger. At least by staying, Gold could keep an eye on Rumpelstiltskin. And—maybe, just maybe—by staying, Gold could catch glimpses of his blue-eyed ex-employee from far distances away every few months, ensure that she was safe, that she was living a wonderful life, that she had everything she needed to succeed.

Gold sighed. What would Rumpelstiltskin say if his human half had been reduced to creepy stalker status? Anyway, that had been the plan, at least until he could think of a better plan. Stick around. Stay low. Protect Belle.

And for the past seventeen days, Gold had thought things with Rumpelstiltskin were getting better. The faerie had been unusually calm during that time. It’d taken Gold a few days to realize it—so bleak and agonized as he’d been after casting Belle out—but yes, Rumpelstiltskin had been almost still. There had been a spike of restless, vengeful, frenzied energy on the night of the full moon as there always was, but it had swiftly been quieted, as though lulled to sleep. Gold had been shocked. He didn’t know what the sudden calm meant, and he hated the small piece inside of him that missed Rumpelstiltskin’s presence in his mind, that craved the constant companionship that had stood with him for centuries. Because without it, he’d been alone, terribly, dreadfully alone. Especially now that Belle was gone too.

So, all in all, Gold had thought things were getting better. He’d thought—hoped against all hopes—that Rumpelstiltskin was fading away. That Gold could stay in Storybrooke and keep Belle safe. That the faerie would let him be.

Gold had been wrong.

Tonight, only a few hours ago, the demon had awoken again and with greater ferocity and frenzy than ever before. There was one moment Gold had felt Rumpelstiltskin’s presence like a physical blow, a whole body thrashing that had Gold sinking to his knees and screaming in agony. It’d been like a typhoon, wild and raw and desperate, bashing Gold’s broken body with wave after wave. Or like every cell of his body had been turned to acid. Gold had stood firm—he wasn’t sure how he’d managed it—and Rumpelstiltskin had quieted once more after the attack, but the faerie’s strength had frightened Gold. If anything, Rumpelstiltskin was growing in power, not fading.

The Blue Fairy had promised Gold over two centuries ago that Rumpelstiltskin would never be able to break free of his prison. Then again, she’d also said that the magic in the Guardian she’d placed over Rumpelstiltskin was beyond the faerie’s ability to alter and that iron would forever repel him. She’d been wrong. Gold still felt the shiver in his blood when he’d seen the Guardian diminished to the frail form of a dove and when he’d found the imp pressed against the iron gate, seemingly unaffected by the metal that was supposed to be fatally poisonous to the faerie folk.

_“These bars won’t keep me forever!”_

Rumpelstiltskin’s shrieking voice echoed in Gold’s memory. It made the black, cursed scar over Gold’s breast ache and pulse.

_“I will be free! And when I am, I’ll come for you! I’ll come for you!”_

Gold’s eyes closed once more. He could sense the chain between himself and Rumpelstiltskin yank and thrash and shriek. Gold had been mad to think anyone or anything—even the Blue Fairy and her self-proclaimed superior light magic—could ever contain a force as raw, as wild and black and crushing as Rumpelstiltskin’s. Gold should have known better.

But he’d been so desperate then. So weary and wounded. He’d wanted to be free of the demon inside him so, so badly that he’d jumped at the opportunity the Blue Fairy had presented and bought her claim that she could neutralize the faerie until the end of time. She’d lied. Or she’d duped herself. Either way, Rumpelstiltskin would be free one day. Gold could feel it. The Dark Castle wouldn’t contain the faerie forever. And Gold felt his blood chill at the thought of the demon faerie rising once more in this day and age, wreaking havoc on a very, very unprepared world. This earth hadn’t seen power like that in more than a millennium. Rumpelstiltskin would be unstoppable. It’d be chaos. Death. Destruction.

And so Gold was leaving Storybrooke. His plan was to search for someone to help him destroy Rumpelstiltskin once and for all. Magic had been all but wiped out in the past several centuries, but Gold knew there were still some pockets of deep, powerful magic in the world. He could sense it. Perhaps he could find these people and convince them to help him neutralize Rumpelstiltskin once more before it was too late. There had to be someone, somewhere who could help. Right? _Right?_

Who was he kidding?

Gold stopped folding the shirt in his hands. He let it fall to the bed as he started to pace. How stupid and desperate could he be? If the Blue Fairy’s magic was failing—magic that was legendary for its strength over the dark elements of this world—how could Gold ever hope to find someone who could help him? It was impossible! There was nothing he or anyone could do. Rumpelstiltskin would be free! He would kill Belle! He would enslave Gold once more! And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it!

Gold angrily thrust his suitcase away from him. It crashed to the floor, spilling clothes all over, and something heavy landed at Gold’s feet.

The dagger.

Gold stared at the iron blade, at the long hated name engraved on the metal. With hesitant hand, he leaned down, picked it up, and closed his eyes as he felt the power of the dagger pull at the scar it had left on his breast two centuries ago, the wound that had purged the faerie from Gold’s flesh and split them into two bodies. Gold could feel the dagger’s thirst to taste his flesh again, to plunge once more—one last time—into Gold’s heart and end it all.

That would solve all his problems. Gold would die. ( _His pulse raced at the thought._ ) Rumpelstiltskin would die too. ( _“The faerie needs the human to survive…”_ ) And thus, by his own death, Gold would save Belle and every soul with that single thrust. Four millennia of life. Then…eternal rest.

It was the only way to kill Rumpelstiltskin. It was the only way to save the world from his maniacal terror.

It was the only way to ensure Belle’s safety.

_(Someone was still pounding on the door.)_

Gold angled the blade toward his breast. He closed his eyes, pictured Belle in his mind. Her warm smile—

_(More pounding.)_

—her addictive laugh—

_(Gold pushed the blade against his skin, hard enough to sting but not cut.)_

—her ever blue eyes—

_(He pressed harder.)_

“Mr. Gold!”

His eyes whipped open and his hand froze.

“I know you’re in there! And if you don’t come out right now, I’m going to break down this bloody door!”

Was he imagining her voice?

“Please! I—I don’t have anywhere else to go!”

She was sobbing. Belle was at his door, pounding, shouting, and sobbing. Her voice was muffled, coming through the front door, but Gold would never mistake that gorgeous voice with that delicate accent no one could soon forget. It was her. But he couldn’t go to her. Every muscle ached to move, but he couldn’t. He _couldn’t_. He’d damn her, and—

“My father’s dead. And I…I need you,” she said.

Gold heard nothing else. The dagger slipped from his grasp. It fell to the floor with a loud thump. And then his legs were carrying him to the door. When he jerked it open, Belle fell inward with a surprised gasp into his equally surprised arms. Apparently she’d been leaning against the door.

“Mr. Gold,” she whispered, blue eyes red and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her curls were running wild about her face. She looked a mess, pinched and pale and upset.

She was the most beautiful creature Gold had ever seen.

“Belle,” he breathed.

And she threw her arms around him and wept. He tried to resist, he did. But he was, after all, only human. Gold pulled her trembling body close. He hadn’t been this near someone in centuries. And this was Belle. It was her. In his arms. He couldn’t stop tears from falling down his own face. He couldn’t drag himself away.

“You can’t be here,” he murmured over and over, digging his nose into her neck and savoring every touch and smell and breath. “You can’t stay.” They clung to each other even tighter.

Was this what a heart was supposed to feel like? Fast and vibrant and _alive_? Is this what air tasted like, fresh and dusted with Belle’s floral scent? It was almost like he’d forgotten how to live in the three weeks since he’d last seen her, forgotten what it was like to live. But now she was in his arms, and he felt whole. Could he ever give her up a second time?

“Belle,” he said, brushing his lips against the skin of her neck but not daring to actually kiss her there. Oh, how he yearned to! “You can’t stay, dearest. You can’t.”

She wrapped a hand around his hair and pulled lightly. “I’m not leaving.”

“But Belle, it’s dangerous. You can’t—”

“I need you,” she whispered, her hot tears spilling onto Gold’s cheek. “I needed you before, too. And you abandoned me. Don’t abandon me again like he did.”

Gold made a small strangled sound and wrapped his arms tighter around her. “No, sweetheart,” he said, the endearment slipping from his tongue. “No, I won’t.”

Belle couldn’t stay forever. Rumpelstiltskin would know. He probably already did.

“I’m here,” Gold managed to say through his tears and guilt.

He would kill her. He’d kill Belle.

“I’m here,” he repeated.

And Gold couldn’t let go.

He held her—clung to her, more like—for at least an hour as Belle and he cried. At some point, they ended up on the floor, in the same spot Gold had sat when he’d turned Belle away seventeen days ago, and there they comforted one another, unwilling and unable to move. Every touch of Belle in his arms was taste of both heaven and hell.

“Your father?” Gold said in a rough voice once most of the crying had stopped. He was sitting up against the wall, Belle had her head in his lap, one of her hands gripping his shirt, and his hand was brushing her hair.

She took a deep breath. “He died this afternoon.”

Gold gently prodded Belle to sit up so he could see her face. Oh how he’d missed those bright, starry blue eyes! Even as red and puffy as they were now, he loved them. He wondered, suddenly, if he loved Belle too.

  1. He quickly shoved the thought to darkness.



“I’m sorry, Belle.” He lifted a cautious hand to her cheek and used his thumb to wipe her tears away. He stopped breathing when she leaned into his hand.

_No…_

“He passed in his sleep,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Dr. Whale said there was no pain.”

Gold swallowed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

Her eyes opened. “Me too.”

She shifted forward, resting her head against his chest. His arms immediately came up to circle her, and one of his hands returned to her hair. It was like he couldn’t stay away. He had his Belle in his arms.

_No!_

Belle took another deep breath. This one made her entire frame shake. “Gaston was there.”

Gold’s hand froze, all thoughts of love and sorrow gone. “Gaston?”

She nodded. “He gave me a folder full of debts. Apparently daddy had been gambling again. It’s a lot of money.” She was quiet for a moment. “Gaston implied that I could—well, you know—to pay off the debt.”

“He what?” Gold felt a boiling, black rage run through his veins. He’d never felt so angry before, and he knew in that instant that if he were still joined with Rumpelstiltskin, he would have let the imp free to hunt down Gaston and drain him of blood. Slowly. As painfully as possible.

“And he did it right next to my father’s—” she broke off “—my father’s corpse.” The next came in a whisper. “He was still warm.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, holding Belle even tighter to keep himself from leaping up and giving in to his murderous thoughts.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Belle said. “I’ll never be able to pay it all off, even selling the business, our home, everything, especially with all the medical bills. I’ll still be—”

“You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll take care of the money.”

Belle lifted her head to look at him. He was too distracted imagining Gaston’s demise to focus on her.

“Mr. Gold?”

“Yes?” He was still looking at the door, a surely brutal look on his face. She raised her hand and pulled his face toward hers. He felt a shiver run down his spine at her touch.

“There’s no way I’m letting you pay off those debts.” Her eyes were fire blue.

“Of course I will. I—”

I love you.

_(No!)_

“—I want to help you,” he stuttered. “And I assure you, my dear, I have plenty of money.”

Her eyes hardened. “A loan.”

“No, I’ll just—”

“A loan or nothing,” she firmly said.

“Fine,” he said, planning to push a zero per cent interest rate past her sharp eyes.

“Three per cent interest,” she said.

Or not. Leave it to his brilliant shop assistant to read his mind. “One.”

“Two-point-five,” she countered.

“One-point-one,” he said.

She raised her eyebrow. He raised his. A small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “One-point-five,” she said. “Final offer.”

He’d find a way to make up the difference. But for now, “Deal,” he said.

Belle extended her hand. “Deal.”

Gold looked at her hand. He felt his heart jump when he had the sudden urge to do something very stupid. He took her hand as gently as he could, turned it palm down, and leaned over to press a kiss on the top of her soft skin. When he dared to look up, her eyes were wide.

“Deal,” she repeated in a weak voice, not pulling her hand away.

“Belle, I—”

He wasn’t sure how he’d planned on ending that sentence. However it would have went, he was distracted when he felt a small object in Belle’s hand. She must have been holding it since she first came in. He turned her hand, opened her palm, and froze.

“Where did you get this?” Even to him his voice sounded cold, deadly.

“From Rum.”

He whipped his eyes up to Belle. “You—he—”

“We’re friends.” She held his gaze coolly.

“Friends?” His voice was weak.

Belle thought for a second, carefully considering her next words. “Yes. Friends. How could I not like him? He’s a—” She stopped talking, and a faint blush streaked her cheeks.

“Belle?”

She was silent for a moment. “He’s a part of you.” She ducked her eyes up. She seemed to be saying something with those ever so blue eyes of hers, but Gold was too stirred up by what she’d said.

“He’s not a part of me!” he said, more harshly than he’d intended.

“What’s with the two of you?” she asked, the fire in her eyes starting to blaze up again. “What have you done to each other so terrible, so awful that you can’t even stand to hear about the other!”

“He’s dangerous, Belle!” Gold insisted. “Do you know what he’s capable of doing? What he intends on doing to—” He had to break off to swallow down the sudden emotion he felt. “What he will do to you when he knows that I—I—”

“You what?”

“—that I…care for you?”

Belle was silent again. “You…care for me?”

 _You love her!_ his heart cried as his mind howled, _You’ve damned her!_

“Yes,” Gold said, ignoring the turmoil inside him. “Rumpelstiltskin swore long ago with the blackest of oath that he’d kill anyone I ever…came to care for.”

“He would never harm me.”

“Belle!” Gold felt like shaking her. “You don’t know what that thing is! What he’s done!”

She studied his face. “Rum would never harm me,” she finally repeated.

“If he ever saw you, if he ever got close enough to you, I swear, Belle, he would kill you.”

Belle shook her head. “You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Gold. He’s…kind, in his own way. And funny. And stubborn. And…” She was smiling, looking into the distance, and Gold felt his blood boil without knowing exactly why.

“And what?”

She looked back at him. “Rum would never harm me,” she repeated yet again.

And then she told her story. About how she’d gone to Rumpelstiltskin when Gold had shut her out. (He ground his teeth. That was _not_ the result he’d been intending.) About their first visit where Rumpelstiltskin had proposed the first of nine deals. About her visit at the full moon and how the imp had managed to pull back and not kill her. (That had surprised Gold. Rumpelstiltskin was a creature of murder and mayhem and, above all, deals. How had he been able to fight against his oath to kill Gold’s loved ones? And why had he? What game was the faerie playing now?) She told him about a (here she blushed while Gold attempted not to dig his fingernails through his palm) kiss on the cheek as the ninth deal.

“But today, something happened,” Belle said, frowning. “After I learned about—about my father—” she cleared her throat and swallowed “—I didn’t know where else to go, so I went to the Dark Castle. One second he was—” she glanced up at Gold “—holding me through the gate, and the next, he was giving me the coin, telling me to give it to you, that you’d help me if you saw it. Then he was backing away, spouting a bunch of nonsense about being a monster, about never being meant to help people, how I deserved something better. And he disappeared.”

This was impossible. Belle wouldn’t lie, of course, so what was the imp up to? What was his end game? Gain Belle’s pity so that she’d trust him, making it easier to kill her? But the imp had had plenty of times to murder her. And why involve Gold now?

Nothing made sense.

“Why would he do that?” Belle asked.

Gold looked up to see that Belle looked truly unhappy. “Belle, sweetheart,” he said, sitting upright and grasping her by the shoulders. “He’s dangerous. Even if what you are saying is true and—”

Fire blazed in her eyes. “I’m not lying!”

“Sorry, of course not, that’s not what I meant,” Gold hastily apologized. “What I meant is that even if Rumpelstiltskin is…different now and he’s not trying to dupe you into—”

“He’s not trying to dupe me, Mr. Gold,” she hotly said.

“Fine, just—” he took a deep breath “—he’s still bound by his oath to kill you. He cannot surmount it. It has been hardwired into his brain and body, and it’ll keep eating away at his mind, his reason, until he is driven by impulse alone to murder you. You can never see him again, for your safety…and his.”

Gold could care less about Rumpelstiltskin’s safety. But that seemed to matter to Belle, so there it was.

“I would destroy him if I spent time with him?” Belle’s eyes started to tear up. “I can’t just leave him all alone. He needs me. He needs someone. He’ll lose himself, Mr. Gold. He was changing. He did change. He—” She broke off.

Had Rumpelstiltskin put her under a curse? Gold could sense nothing—a whiff of magic from her proximity to the faerie, yes, but nothing malign.

A clock sounded deep in Gold’s home. It struck one bell.

Had it really gotten that late? Realizing how sore his joints were after sitting on the floor so long, Gold cleared his throat. “It’s 1:00 in the morning. May I escort you home?”

“I, um…” Belle looked down at her hands.

“Yes?” When she said nothing, Gold leaned forward and wrapped his hands over hers. They were warm. “What is it, Belle?”

“I can’t go home,” she whispered. “Not now. Not so soon after Dad has…”

She trailed off, but Gold immediately understood. “Shall I get you room at Granny’s Inn?”

Belle raised her head. “Could I stay here? Just on the couch, I don’t want to be in the way. But I…feel safe here.”

Gold stared at her. He could feel his mouth working up and down. Finally, “Of course. Yes. Of course. I have a spare bedroom, spare sheets, towels, anything you’d need.”

She nodded. “And could we…sit for a moment longer? Before I go to sleep?”

His heart pounded. “I’d like nothing more.”

They moved to the couch, and Belle laid her head in Gold’s lap, unfurling her legs out on the couch. She was asleep in minutes. Gold didn’t have the heart to move her, so he sat there, looking into the dark room and running his hand in errant paths over her hair as his mind ran in circles.

Nothing about Belle’s story made sense. He had to see Rumpelstiltskin. Now.

When the clock struck three, Gold slid away from the couch and placed his best pillow under Belle’s head and his best blankets over her body. He hated leaving her all alone, but he couldn’t rest until he knew she was safe, until he knew what game Rumpelstiltskin was playing. Daring to first tuck a curl back behind her ear, Gold slipped out the front door. At the first step he took outside, the moon’s light touched his skin, and he hissed at the sting, hoping that no one was awake to see the green, scaly skin that was revealed.

The drive to the Dark Castle was quiet, and the grounds about the castle were even quieter. Gold turned off the car, got out, and approached the fence. Rumpelstiltskin was not there, but Gold could feel the blackened scar over his heart burn. He had to fight down the coward inside him that wanted to run away and never return.

Gold set his cane in front of him, rested both hands on top, and called out, “I’m here! What is it you want, demon?”

Silence.

Taking a deep breath, Gold dug inside himself, found the black chain that linked Rumpelstiltskin to him, and followed it. He opened the gate, flinching at the creak of the hinges, and took the path leading to the castle.

He found Rumpelstiltskin standing fifty feet from the castle’s front door. There was a clearing directly in front of him with moonlight bathing the ground, but Rumpelstiltskin was standing just inside the shadows of the trees. His back was to Gold.

“I got your calling card,” Gold said, flipping the king’s coin he’d taken from Belle to the dirt directly behind Rumpelstiltskin. The faerie did not move, did not turn. “What do you want?”

The faerie was silent for a long moment. “How is she?” he finally asked.

Gold clenched his jaw. “She’s none of your concern.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulders tightened at first then relaxed almost as quickly. “Yes. I know. She is your concern, not mine.”

What?

Gold frowned with suspicion. He stepped closer, to the side of Rumpelstiltskin, and saw that the faerie had one hand thrust into the moonlight. The skin in the light was as pale as Gold’s.

“She needs a human,” Rumpelstiltskin continued in a low voice. “Not me. Not a monster.” He paused then pulled his hand out of the moonlight. It returned to the sick, scaly green color of the imp. He faced Gold. “She needs you.”

Gold noticed for the first time how broken the faerie looked. He’d never seen Rumpelstiltskin look so down. Usually the imp was bouncing with manic energy. This creature standing before him was nothing like the frothing animal he’d seen seventeen days ago.

“I don’t understand,” Gold confessed, his hand tightening around his cane, waiting for the moment when the faerie would surely snap back to his usual dangerous self. Gold would not be caught unawares.

“Belle must never see me again,” Rumpelstiltskin simply said, turning his back on Gold once more. “I am not good for her. One day, I’ll slip. One day, she’ll pay.” He swallowed. “She is not safe with me. She does not belong with me.”

“And what about your oath?” Gold asked.

Again, Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulders tightened. “If I never see her again, she’ll be safe.” He turned to Gold. “You must ensure she never comes here again. The longer I leave the oath unfulfilled, the stronger they’ll get. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself from…from—”

“From murdering her?” Gold blatantly said, and the faerie flinched. “From sinking your teeth into her throat and letting her blood run down your chin? From gloating as she grows cold and—”

“Stop.” Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes. His face was pained. “Please.”

Had the fiendish demon of darkness and death just said ‘please?’

Gold’s brow furrowed. “What game are you playing?” he asked, studying Rumpelstiltskin’s face, searching for the lie he knew had to be there.

“I understand now,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered, ignoring Gold’s question. “About Milah. Your father. Bae.”

Before Gold could think, he’d whipped up his cane and drove the faerie back into a tree. He held the cane against Rumpelstiltskin’s windpipe, pressing hard, and growled, “Don’t you ever, _ever_ say his name!”

Rumpelstiltskin was limp under Gold’s cane. “I want to make a deal,” he said.

Gold pressed harder. “I’m not interested.”

“It’s about Belle.”

Gold paused. “What do you want?”

“I promise to never interfere with her nor you again,” Rumpelstiltskin said. His reptilian eyes were unusually lucid. “I will stay here—” the muscle in his left cheek twitched “—alone. I will never contact you or her again. And in exchange…” Rumpelstiltskin broke off.

“Yes?” Gold lowly asked.

“Take care of Belle. Do that, and I shall leave you in peace.”

Gold backed up, the cane falling to his side. What was going on? This was absurd! In all their millennia of life together, Rumpelstiltskin had never made such a deal. Or looked so despondent. Or surrendered so fully.

“What about earlier tonight?” he asked, remembering how viciously Rumpelstiltskin had attacked his mind only hours before. “How can I trust this, this—” he gestured to Rumpelstiltskin’s hunched form “—pitiful guise you’re wearing right now when you tried to take over my will?”

“Earlier tonight, I could sense that Belle was in trouble. I could tell she was in pain.” Rumpelstiltskin clenched his jaw. “And there was nothing I could do.”

“So you, what? Attacked me?”

“I was trying to get you to help her. You’re the human.” He looked at Gold, yellow eyes on brown. “That’s your job. I could never—I can’t—” Rumpelstiltskin turned back to the castle. He lifted his hand once more into the moonlight in front of him. “I can never be you. Be human.”

Gold was silent.

And suddenly, Rumpelstiltskin flinched. He jerked out of the moonlight, placed his hands over his ears, and shouted, “Shut up! Shut up! I won’t let you!”

Gold jumped backward. “What—”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes flashed up to his. The pupils were huge. “The deal!” he said through clenched teeth. “I need you to accept the deal! I can’t—” He broke off into a howl, curling down. “Now! Before they take me!”

“You promise to never touch her,” Gold said.

“Yes!” Rumpelstiltskin cried before he growled in a rough, inhuman voice, “ _She’s his! She’s HIS!_ ”

“You promise to leave me alone,” Gold said.

“ _Tittle-hee-hee-hee! He in love with she!_ ” the beast in front of him chanted in a high voice, scratching at the earth with its talons. “ _He must weepy-wee-wee!_ ” Then Rumpelstiltskin surfaced and screamed, “Get out! I’m not you! I’m—I’m—”

“Do you promise to leave me alone from here on out!” Gold shouted, stepping toward the tortured creature in front of him.

“YES!” Rumpelstiltskin sobbed. He whipped his head up, and Gold could see the conflict waging in his eyes. “And you’ll take care of her? Promise me, you’ll take care of her!”

“Yes.”

“Then deal! Deal!”

“Yes. Deal,” Gold said.

For the briefest of moments, Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes cleared. He smiled, and it wasn’t the smile of the bloodthirsty demon. It was the smile of a man at peace.

And then he snapped.

The faerie was flung onto his back. He was convulsing on the ground. “SHE’S HIS!” it howled as Rumpelstiltskin cried, “No!” Before the frenzy fully took over, he glanced one last time at Gold and shouted, “Run! Run!”

And Gold did.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One month. One fall. One death. And one scaly green man on the streets of Storybrooke.

As soon as Mr. Gold parked his car, he searched the front windows of Granny’s Diner.

Belle was there. Waiting. For him.

So much had happened in the four weeks since she had fallen through his door and back into his life. The first several days had been spent planning for her father’s funeral. That had been tough. Gold had tried to take care of everything for her in a vain attempt to save her from that formless, creeping demon Grief, but Belle had insisted on making all of the choices herself. He wouldn’t have expected anything else from his Belle.

At Morrel’s Monuments, she had selected a simple headstone with the etching of a lily.

(“He would have liked this one,” she’d told Gold, trailing a finger over the flower.)

She’d chosen a dark brown pine casket.

(“It looks like the one we buried mother in.”)

Miss Thacker had been the organist.

(“Dad always liked her better than Mrs. Roberts. ‘Fingers of an angel,’ he’d say. I always wondered if he fancied Miss Thacker.”)

Father Maky had presided over the grave.

(“Dad hated his sermons.”)

And six of her father’s friends—Archie, Leroy, Dr. Whale, Marco, Mr. Lumiere, and Mr. Cogsworth—were chosen as pallbearers.

There’d been a good showing at the funeral. But that wasn’t surprising. Belle was loved in this town. Gold had intended on slipping into the back once the funeral started, not wanting his presence to scare the people away from Belle when she needed them most, but the second he’d started to leave, she had clung to his arm. She’d clung to him throughout the entire service. She’d clung to him at the gravesite. And she hadn’t let go until he’d escorted her to his car at the end of it all.

People had stared. They’d arched their brows at the sight of the town’s Beauty with its Beast. Murmured that Gold was taking advantage of Belle in her vulnerable state.

Belle hadn’t cared. And he’d promised to never abandon her again. So he’d stayed with her.

After the funeral came the finances. Belle got her 1.5% interest rate, despite Gold’s incessant growling, and he’d personally delivered the check to Gaston. Now _that_ had been an equally difficult task. If Belle hadn’t made Gold promise to not harm Gaston, that weasel of a man would have been pulverized.

(“Oh. So _that’s_ why Belle’s been spending so much time with you. How much did she cost?” Gaston had asked with a leer.)

Gold had needed to grip his cane with white-skinned fists to keep himself from not attacking the man.

But that hadn’t stopped Gold from destroying him.

Yes, Gold left Gaston physically intact. But a couple thousand dollars of private investigation later, the policemen received a file on their desk with all the incriminating evidence needed to put Gaston behind bars for a very, very long time.

If Belle had heard about Gaston’s demise or suspected Gold of being involved, she said nothing.

Gold was just glad that such a vile man was off the streets—or, at least, _would_ be as soon as the trial. At the moment, Gaston was out on bail which bothered Gold to no end. To allow himself to sleep at night, Gold had hired someone to trail Gaston to make sure he didn’t get too close to Belle. As of yet—his informant reported—Gaston had done little more than drink himself into a stupor every night.

Taking care of Belle’s father’s debts with Gaston hadn’t been the only financial decision in the past month. Belle had also put the flower shop with its attached home on the market.

“It’s not home anymore,” she’d said. “And besides, if I sell the shop now, I’ll be three steps closer to paying my debt to you. Don’t want the 1.5% to rack up too much interest, now do I.”

He’d hated that she’d had to leave her home, but Belle had made up her mind. And Gold knew better than to step in her way.

Since the night she’d stayed at Gold’s, sleeping on his couch, she’d taken up residence in Granny’s Inn, just behind the Diner. Gold suspected that Granny—a long-time friend of the family (and the one woman in town who dared match Gold’s glare with one of her own)—had given Belle a ridiculously discounted rate. He was pleased. She needed people like Granny and Ruby. He was even more pleased that they hadn’t shunned Belle because of her association with him. That didn’t mean Granny was all cuddles and smiles either though, of course. She still huffed at Gold every morning and fixed him with her disapproving eye. But at least they didn’t treat Belle differently. That was all that mattered.

A part of him still worried he was all wrong for Belle. She needed light, not darkness. Life, not shadow.

_She needs a human_.

Rumpelstiltskin’s words echoed in his mind.

_She needs you_.

And, as though she knew what Gold was thinking, Belle’s head lifted from the book she’d been reading, she saw Gold through the window, and she smiled.

Oh, how that smile could do things to him!

So warm and true and eager, with those blue-sky eyes bright and dancing with excitement. She waved, a little too energetically for such a small thing—and for an adult, to boot—and Gold loved every part.

A smile of his own pulled at his lips as he hurried out of his car and into the Diner. Belle was sitting in the middle booth. Gold hated that, being out in the open without a wall to put his back to, but that’s where Belle was and so that’s where he went.

“Is this spot taken?” he asked, limping to her side and gesturing at the space across from her.

She giggled. “Of course not, you silly man! Why do you ask that every day? Who else would I share my breakfasts with?”

Gold sat down, hooking his cane to the table. “Not a monster like me, certainly.”

Belle sighed as if to say, _Not this again_. She opened her mouth but was interrupted by Ruby arriving to take their order.

Belle opened her menu. “I had the pecan waffles yesterday so I’ll have the strawberry ones today,” she said.

“And you?” Ruby asked, turning to Gold.

As if she didn’t already know. Belle ordered something different every day. She was currently working her way sequentially through the menu, trying everything. Gold, on the other hand, had the same thing every morning: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast. It’s what he’d had every morning for the past month that Belle and he had started sharing their breakfasts together, yet Ruby still asked. Every. Day. And she’d always do so with a stubborn glint in her eye as though daring him to complain.  

Gold was about to speak when Belle beat him to the punch.

“He’ll have the pecan waffles,” Belle announced, snapping her menu closed and handing it to Ruby.

Wait. What?

“I—” he started to say, but Belle interrupted him.

“Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” she asked.

Sweetheart? Had Belle just called him ‘sweetheart’?

He’d eat anything.

“Pecan waffles then?” Ruby asked with a sly grin.

Gold could only nod. Ruby was on the verge of laughing at him, the Dark One. And he could only nod.

The waffles turned out to be delicious, though he wouldn’t admit that to Belle—or Ruby or Granny for that matter. Belle just sat as she watched him eat, a knowing smirk at her lips.

They chatted about the book Belle was currently re-reading (a novel called _Mistborn_ ). Well, actually, that wasn’t quite right. _Belle_ chatted about the book, arms waving wildly about, eyes bright with excitement, while Gold just sat there and watched her, soaking in her vitality. Her Australian accent always got a bit stronger when she went off like this. It was enchanting.

“And then the Lord Ruler died and Elend became king and—and my mouth’s run away like horses from tempests again, hasn’t it?” Belle suddenly asked, blushing, after a steady stream of describing in minute detail the adventures and misadventures of a woman named Vin who seemed—as far as Gold could gather from Belle’s description—to have a bit of the same fire as Belle did.

“No, you’re fine,” he said, smiling gently. “Saves me the time of having to read the book.”

Belle laughed, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. “I’m glad to hear I haven’t bored you. But if all my talking means you’re not going to read it, I’ve done a very poor thing indeed! It’s a spectacular series!” She bit her lip. “Do you know which character you remind me of? Just a bit?”

“The Lord Ruler?” Gold said, citing the antagonist who was black through and through, a murderer and tyrant of epic proportions.

Belle laughed a second time. “Heavens no! Well, actually, maybe in a way. By the end of the series, you learn that he wasn’t all that bad, that he’d been trying to protect the world and that he’d tried so hard to do so that he’d destroyed everything in the process. He had misunderstood and he’d been misunderstood.”

Gold said nothing.

“But that’s not who I was thinking of,” Belle said. “I was thinking of Vin.”

Vin? The sixteen-year old girl who’d lived on the streets as a thief, abandoned by her abusive half-brother, beaten by her crew leader? Who’d been saved from that life and became a powerful magician-like creature who ended up killing the supposedly omnipotent god, the Lord Ruler?

Gold was stumped. He could see the ways in which fiery, stubborn, eternally strong Belle was like Vin. But him?

“Do you know what she learns by the end of the second book?” Belle asked.

“I’ve only had the privilege of hearing the first book dissected in all its glory,” Gold said, taking a sip of tea.

“True.” Belle leaned forward. “She learns trust.”

Gold frowned. “And that reminds you of me how?”

“Vin had been hurt over and over in her youth. She lost all faith in people, lost all trust, and she closed herself off from others, fearing to be hurt again. And then—” Belle placed one finger on Gold’s hand, a simple, light touch “—she found someone who saw her for who she was, loved her despite all of her faults and quirks, in fact, loved her _because_ of those faults and quirks. And she let him make her whole.”

Gold wanted— _needed_ —to ask Belle for a second time how that reminded her of him. But he could say nothing. And neither did she.

They drank the rest of their tea in silence.

Eventually, as almost always happened at some point during their morning meal, Belle’s eyes strayed past the window, past the streets and buildings and woods, up to a hill where a demon blacker than hell itself sat by himself, locked in a prison of iron.

Gold always felt his pulse race with panic when he could see her thoughts turn to Rumpelstiltskin. Gold used to think that he had to keep Belle away from himself to keep her safe, but the new oath forged by the faerie had been very specific: Rumpelstiltskin promised to not kill Belle as long as she never went to the Dark Castle again and as long as Gold took care of her.

Gold still didn’t know what to think about his damned faerie self. He’d hated the creature for so long that he couldn’t help but suspect the demon of some new kind of treachery. There was no way the dreaded Rumpelstiltskin, the Destroyer of Ages, could change.

And yet it seemed that things had.

Since the night Gold had gone to visit Rumpelstiltskin and they’d sworn their new oath, Gold had felt nothing from the faerie. For the first time in two centuries, the black chain between them was completely still. Gold should have been happy. He should have been celebrating his freedom from the shadow he’d heaved around his entire long life. But all Gold could feel was numb.

“Have you gone to see him?” Belle asked in a quiet voice. When Gold said nothing, she murmured, “I thought not.”

Gold’s frown deepened. He took several seconds to compose himself. “Belle, I—”

“I know,” she whispered. “I just—” She broke off, and her eyes lifted to his. “He’s lonely. And I—” She trailed off again.

She, what? Pitied him? Missed him? Something else?

She swallowed. “Would it really hurt him if I visited him?”

“No.”

Her eyes flashed with excitement and hope.

Gold leaned forward, placing his hands over hers. “It wouldn’t hurt him. It would destroy him.”

The hope died.

“The things that control him will do anything to force him to fulfill his first oath by killing you,” Gold said. “They would unravel every atom and fiber of his being to achieve that victory. You must never see him again.”

If Rumpelstiltskin confused Gold, Belle’s connection to the demon confused him even more. Why did she care? It frustrated Gold to no end. He suspected that magic had clouded her senses, but there was no magic fused to her mind. She just…cared. Somehow. The same way she’d come to care for the Beast of Storybrooke, he supposed.

Belle was too pure, too _good_ for darkness. And yet it seemed to be her very purity and goodness that allowed her to embrace that darkness. She was as bright as sun to his eyes, but she was more so his moon, the one eye of light in his sea of black night.

In silence, Belle and Gold gathered their coats, Gold his cane, and they left the Diner, heading for the pawn shop. Belle had returned to work a couple weeks ago. And there’d been a lot of work to do. After Gold had trashed the shop as thoroughly as he had, there’d been cleaning and re-ordering, shelving and organizing. He’d also fallen behind on his rent collection. With Belle, he was slowly catching up from his seventeen days of holing up in his home. She worked the ledgers. He made the rounds. They made an efficient team.

As they sauntered down the sidewalk—Belle a few, tantalizing inches apart from him—Belle’s somber mood did not lift. But halfway to the shop, she did something that stole his breath away. She linked her arm through his and leaned against him as they walked. Not so much that he’d falter on his weak leg, but enough that his heart burned with her warmth.

“One day, Mr. Gold,” she said in a quiet voice, “I hope you trust me enough to tell me the whole story of you and Rumpelstiltskin.”

He already trusted her enough. It should have scared him how much he trusted her, but it didn’t. It felt…right. (Maybe he was like Belle’s Vin?)

What he didn’t trust was himself.

And so they walked the rest of the way to the shop in silence.

xxx

Was it possible to be in love with two men? And did it make it more or less possible when the two men were basically the same person, only that one was a human and the other was his dark faerie half?

Belle sighed.

She felt torn. Half of her was walking on the white fluffy clouds of romantic bliss. Gold and she had breakfast together every morning, and however hard he tried to hide it, she lived for the small smile she’d see on his face the second his eyes met hers through the diner windows. Ever since she’d been brave enough to link her arm through his a couple days ago, she now craved the contact. She loved spending time in the shop with him, watching him smart-talk customers with solid confidence, write numbers in his ledgers with his neat handwriting, and tinker on clocks with delicate proficiency.

Before she’d first met Rumpelstiltskin, her time with Gold in the shop had been filled with what she could only think was subtle flirtation. Now, everything felt deeper. Stronger. She couldn’t be imagining his longing looks, could she? She thought he might like her back. And she thought he might trust her. But he kept so much distance between them…

So. Half of her: fluttering stomach and the cursed cliché of romantic confusion.

The other half of her? Grief.

Lingering grief for her father.

And present grief for Rumpelstiltskin.

She hated leaving him all alone up there. She missed him with all his flamboyancy and ridiculousness and gaudy clothes and childishness—everything. He needed her, she thought with frustration. And if not her, he needed _someone_. He’d been so lost the first time she’d met him. She could only imagine how broken he was now, alone again. As though she’d betrayed him.

The only thing that somewhat assuaged her guilt was that Rumpelstiltskin had begged her to do so.

What black history had rooted itself so firmly in these two men’s breasts that they loathed themselves so fully, refusing to allow themselves (and each other) to be free, to be loved, and to love in return?

The front bell to the pawn shop rang. Mr. Gold was out on an errand, leaving Belle to tend the shop.

“Coming!” Belle called out as she set down her pen, leapt out of Mr. Gold’s chair, and hurried through the bead curtain separating the front of the store from the back work room. Belle put on her best customer-service smile then cheerily asked, “What can I do for—”

“Hey doll.”

A very drunk Gaston.

Belle’s smile faded.

xxx

As soon as Gold got the call from the man he’d hire to tail Gaston, he spun on his heel.

_Bloody limp!_ he cursed as he hurried as quickly as he could to his car.

“Wait, Mr. Gold! Where are you going?”

Gold ignored the man he’d been previously terrorizing.

“What about the money?”

No money mattered when Belle was in trouble.

Trying to master his phone with the trembling fingers of his left hand while also using his cane with his right, he dialed the sheriff’s office.

“There’s been a shooting at Gold’s shop,” he said as soon as the line connected.

It wasn’t completely a lie. There likely would be a shooting if the sheriff didn’t arrive at the shop before Gold did and shot Gaston.

“Wait, is this—”

He hung up before Sheriff Swan could ask for details.

He yanked his car door open, jumped inside, and jammed his keys into the ignition. He had a moment of déjà vu as he remembered another time, not so long ago, when he’d had his heart beating in his throat like now and he’d driven as fast as he could to save the woman he loved.

He only hoped he got there in time.

xxx

“What I don’t get,” Gaston slurred, “is why you said yes to Oldy Goldy of all people. Belle, babe, you’re better than that.”

For the past five or so minutes, Belle had managed to keep the counter between herself and Gaston, but he was close enough she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She wanted to run, but the last time she’d started toward the back room, Gaston had started screaming at her to stay. So she’d stayed. She didn’t know what else to do.

“I asked you before, and I’ll ask you again, Gaston,” Belle said in as firm a voice as she could muster. “Please leave.”

A flash of anger in his eyes. “No.” He jerked upright, swaying on his feet. “Do you know what that beast did to me? He took away my life! I’ve got nothing now thanks to him! Thanks to you!” He threw an accusing finger in her direction. “You pathetic, little—”

“The lady asked you to leave.”

The voice at the door was cold, deadly, yet it filled Belle with relief. Gold was here.

Gaston turned around and almost fell at the effort. “And look who’s returned from the geriatric ward!” he mocked.

“Get out of my shop,” Mr. Gold forcefully said, pointing out the door. His eyes were black. Murderous. Apparently Gaston didn’t see. Or he didn’t care.

“Why don’t _you_ go, grampa!” Gaston said, swinging his arm wildly. “She’d be better off with me!” Then he turned back to Belle, saying in a chiding voice, “Belle, Belle, Belle. How can you be with such a monster? Or maybe you’re just one of his possessions. Is that it?”

“How dare you!” Mr. Gold said in a voice somehow even more menacing than before. He surged forward, grabbing Gaston’s collar and throwing him against the door.

“Mr. Gold!” Belle cried out in shock.

“She’s no one’s possession!” Mr. Gold ground out through bared teeth.

Belle rushed toward the two men.

Mr. Gold was pressing his cane against Gaston’s windpipe. “I made a promise to a demon faerie from the deepest pit of hell to keep Belle safe!”

Gaston was gasping for air.

“Stop!” Belle cried.

“And you are nothing but a fly against my rage and his, boy!” Mr. Gold shouted.

Gaston was scrambling, his feet trying to find purchase on the ground. Mr. Gold pressed harder.

“Mr. Gold!” Belle cried again. It was like Mr. Gold couldn’t hear her. She gasped when she saw his pinky start to turn the scaly green of Rumpelstiltskin’s. What was happening?

“I’ve killed many of your kind,” Mr. Gold was growling, “and I’ll gladly—”

Belle had heard enough, seen enough. She yanked on Mr. Gold’s arm and shouted, “Stop! Please! This isn’t you!”

Mr. Gold’s words died. He looked down at her hand, up to her eyes, then to his cane at Gaston’s neck. As though burned, Mr. Gold instantly dropped the cane and took a stumbling step back. He stared at his hands, at the scaly green skin fast disappearing from his pinky.

He looked horrified.

“Man, you’re crazy!” Gaston spluttered.

Mr. Gold said nothing for a moment then he limped forward, opened the door, and got right up in Gaston’s face.

“Go.” Mr. Gold’s voice was low. “Now.”

Gaston was either too drunk or too stupid to listen. “I will not go, old man! You ruined my life!”

Mr. Gold grabbed Gaston’s collar for the second time and hauled him onto the sidewalk.

“You act like you run this town, but you’re weak!” Gaston shouted, and people walking along the street stopped to stare. “You’re—you’re nothing! You’re a creepy old pervert!”

Belle placed a hand on Mr. Gold’s shoulder. She could feel his muscles instantly relax under her touch. There was the sound of a siren from a couple streets down.

“Come into the shop,” she begged. “Please.”

Mr. Gold faced Belle. His hair had fallen over his eyes, shrouding them, but Belle could read the conflict in them as clearly as reading a page. Anger. Fear. Guilt. Shame.

“Come inside,” she repeated, reaching out to brush his hair to the side.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, leaning into her touch. And when he opened his eyes once more, she could read one more emotion there, shining bright and strong.

“There you are,” she whispered, smiling.

And that is when everything changed.

There was a shout. Belle looked up. She saw Gaston, still shouting, trip on the sidewalk. Saw a green car coming down the street much faster than it should have been going. She yelled, pointing. Mr. Gold looked up. And then time seemed to freeze.

Mr. Gold looked from the car to Gaston falling directly into the car’s path, and with inhumanly fast speed he lurched forward, colliding into Gaston with such force that it pushed the man out of the car’s path. Belle didn’t even have time to scream before the car hit Mr. Gold instead.

There was a sickening thud as Mr. Gold’s body was hurled like a rag doll against the windshield, cracking it into a million spidery bits, and then tossed to the ground.

“Mr. Gold!” Belle screamed, running and falling to his side.

Oh. Dear. Blood. Too much blood.

“No, no, no! Stay with me!” she sobbed. “Don’t leave me!”

She pulled him into her arms, rocking his limp body.

He wasn’t moving.

“Stay with me!”

Her voice was hoarse by the time someone finally yanked her away from Mr. Gold’s body to allow the paramedics to circle around him.

“He’s not breathing!” one of them said.

Belle tried to throw herself back on top of her love, but the arms encircling her were too tight.

“Let me go!” she screamed as the paramedics started CPR. “He needs me!”

“Belle, you need to let them work,” a voice said in her ear.

Something told her it was Marco, but she didn’t care.

“Let go!”

The arms didn’t.

So Belle was forced to watch as the paramedics first worked tirelessly on Mr. Gold’s body and then, at long last, sat back.

Giving up.

This couldn’t be happening.

It just couldn’t.

“He’s gone, Belle,” Marco quietly said.

Gone?

But—

“No!” Belle cried, finally ripping out of Marco’s grasp and stumbling to the ground. She held onto Mr. Gold’s body, refusing to let go. “Stay with me! I need you!”

Her face was wet with tears. Her clothes, with his blood.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

Suddenly, his skin grew cold, colder than death. Belle heard the crowd crying out, and she raised herself up to look at Mr. Gold.

She was looking at Rumpelstiltskin.

Green scaly skin. Black talons for fingernails. Crimped, greasy hair. Black leather clothes. Mr. Gold’s eyes fluttered open, and Belle saw reptilian yellow.

“Belle, what’s happened?” he croaked, looking around with confusion.

“You’re alive!” Belle cried, throwing her arms around him, hugging him, kissing his temple. “You’re alive!” she said again. And she said it over and over and over until a scream pulled her short.

She looked up to the crowd and saw horror on everyone’s faces. Someone shouted “monster.” Another, “What is he?”

Belle stood and gave Mr. Gold her hand to help him up. As he got to his feet, the scaly green skin returned to human peach, his talons to normal nails, his eyes to chocolate brown, and his clothing to the business suit of Storybrooke’s beast.

The crowd, as one, took a step back.

“Belle?” Marco whispered, looking between her and Mr. Gold. His face was pale.

Without a word, Belle helped Mr. Gold back into the shop, closed the door, and locked it.

xxx

Miles away on the grounds of the Dark Castle, Rumpelstiltskin barely noticed when his skin had started to burn hotter than any kiss of moonlight. And when it stopped burning, he put his head back on the ground and held himself even tighter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get much, much worse.

Gold’s entire body was stinging. It felt like his head was twenty feet under water.

He dimly heard Belle closing the blinds to the door then dashing to the two front windows to do the same. It looked like pandemonium out there. Sheriff Emma Swan had arrived, and people were crowding around her, shouting and pointing.

And then there was Gaston. Just staring at him through the window right before Belle closed the last blind. He had a strange smile on his face.

Gold could tell that Belle was asking him something, but he couldn’t hear her. He picked at his clothes. They were bloody. His skin was bloody. He frantically rubbed the blood away, but he found no wounds. Gold took a step forward and gasped. He took another step. His limp was nearly gone, the pain almost negligible.

Something was very wrong.

Belle grabbed his arm and he surfaced from his daze.

“Mr. Gold! Can you hear me?” she asked.

Gold stared at her eyes. They were so, so blue.

_Tittle-hee-hee-hee!_

He flinched. The voice had been barely an echo, a shadow brushing his mind, but it filled him with deep dread.

“Mr. Gold?”

Ignoring Belle, Gold ducked down to grab his cane, rushed to the nearest display case, and brought his cane down crashing into the glass.

“What are you doing?” Belle cried. “We just got them fixed!”

Again, Gold ignored her as he picked up a shard of glass and cut the top of his hand.

“Stop!” Belle shouted, running over to him. “You aren’t—”

Her words faded when she saw what Mr. Gold was seeing. Starting from the four-inch ugly gash, green scaly skin blossomed across his hand. In a matter of seconds, the cut had completely healed. A single drop of blood trailed down his hand as the skin turned human once more.

Something was very, very wrong indeed.

Gold was a human. An immortal human untouched by disease or the infirmities of aging. But a human nonetheless. He should have died out there.

He knelt down and pulled up his right pant leg. His skin was green from the knee down. And it was spreading upward.

“No,” he whispered.

Staying on his knees, he threw off his coat and jacket, ripping his shirt open. Green scaly skin was spreading out from the black dagger wound in the middle of his chest.

“I—I don’t understand,” Belle stuttered.  

_Kill her_.

The image of seizing a piece of glass and driving it into Belle’s heart hit him like a club to the gut. His hand twitched toward a glass shard lying a few inches away from his foot.

_She trusts you. She loves you. Kill her!_

Belle’s hand touched Gold’s shoulder and he jerked away, falling to his back and scrambling as far from Belle as he could.

_You are Rumpelstiltskin._

“No,” Gold moaned, pressing his hands against his head. This couldn’t be happening!

_You are the Dark One, the Dealmaker!_

“Get out! I’m not him!”

_You must kill her!_

“No!” Gold shouted. “GET OUT!”

Belle moved toward him, concern darkening her blue eyes, and Gold thrust his hands out. “Stay back!” he cried. “I can’t—I can’t—”

_She’s ours. We demand her blood to pay the oath! We need it! KILL HER!_

Gold screamed.

xxx

Belle hadn’t been this terrified since her first visit to the Dark Castle.

And she didn’t know what to do.

“I’m not him, I’m not him, I’m not him,” Gold was murmuring over and over, huddled in a ball and pushing his hands against his temples as though trying to keep his head together. His shirt was open, and there was green scaly skin creeping from the black hole in his chest, spreading out like blood in water, reaching to his neck, then his chin, and down his stomach.

Belle cautiously knelt and crept closer to him. “You can fight it,” she whispered.

His eyes flashed open. His pupils were huge, and he growled, “You’re ours. The oath. The oath! The oath demands you!” Then he screamed again.

“Mr. Gold, stay with me,” Belle pled.

She’d said those same words outside, begging him not to die. And now she was begging him not to succumb to whatever was trying to take over him. Somehow she knew that if it did, she’d be dead in a matter of seconds.

“Stay with me.”

“I—I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth. He pointed frantically to the front desk. “There’s a gun. Iron bullets. Bottom drawer. Aim for my heart. It should—it should stop me if I…if I…” His words were overcome by a groan. “Get it now, Belle!”

Belle scrambled upward, hands shaking as she rounded the front counter and yanked out the bottom drawer. The black gun was there. She stared at it, heart in her throat.

“Now!” Mr. Gold cried. “It’s—” He broke off. He was suddenly quiet, head bowed, hair shrouding his face.

“Mr. Gold?” Belle asked, leaving the gun and rushing to kneel in front of him again, staying a good five feet away. “Mr. Gold?” she tried again.

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee,” he said, voice quiet and eerie.

Belle froze.

He raised his head. He was grinning. The green skin had almost completely covered his face. “There be no me, just we!”

He slowly, smoothly stood and Belle leapt to her feet. When he took a step toward her, like a tiger toward prey, Belle backed up against the wall.

“Mr. Gold, please…” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “You can beat it! Fight!”

“Tittle-hee-hee-hee!” he chanted again, leaning down to pick up a shard of glass. “We must weepy-wee-wee!”

There was a loud knock at the front door and Belle jumped.

“It’s Sheriff Swan. Is everything okay in there?”

Mr. Gold took another step toward Belle. “Tittle-hee-hee-hee!” His eyes were black. “There be no—” He broke off with a shout, dropping the glass shard and pressing his face into his hands. When he looked up at Belle, his eyes were brown again and frantic. “Belle, it’s too strong! You must leave! Go!”

“Open up!” Sheriff Swan shouted. “Belle, are you in there?”

“Mr. Gold,” Belle whispered, “you can fight it. I know you can. Fight it, like Rumpelstiltskin did.”

It seemed like the wrong words to say. Mr. Gold broke into a tittering giggle, and his eyes blackened once more.

“Don’t you see?” he asked with a flourish, voice rising. “I _am_ Rumpelstiltskin!”

“If you don’t open this door, I’m going to break it down!” Sheriff Swan shouted.

Belle’s Mr. Gold surfaced one last time. “Run, Belle! Run!” he cried, his voice modulating, changing from the low voice of the human to the high inhuman trill of the demon faerie. “Yes, run, little piggie! Run wee, wee, wee all the way home!”

The scaly green skin covered the remainder of his face. Mr. Gold was gone. He grinned, teeth black and rotten.

“Because I’m coming for you, dearie!” the creature in front of her said.

The door crashed inward, Sheriff Swan barging through. And, with a maniacal laugh, the creature disappeared in a swathe of purple smoke.

A single sob tore from Belle’s chest.

Sheriff Swan blinked. “Did he just disappear?”

Belle ignored her, stumbling back to the front desk.

“Belle?” the sheriff asked.

Without turning, Belle grabbed the gun, dashed through the beaded curtain, and ran out the back door into the alley, Sheriff Swan’s voice disappearing behind her.

What had happened to Mr. Gold? Was he really going to kill her now?

Belle was sprinting down the sidewalk, clinging to the cold, black gun in her hand. One of her high heels slipped off, and she left it behind, stopping only long enough to take off her other shoe as well. People were pointing at her, shouting at her, but she didn’t stop, not until she was in her room at Granny’s Inn with the door locked and the dresser moved in front of it.

Like that would stop him.

Belle backed into the corner, slid down the wall to the floor, and waited. And waited. The gun felt heavy in her numb hands.

If he did come for her, would she use it? Would she kill him? Could she?

She felt hallow inside.

There was a knock at the door.

Belle scrambled up, heart thumping. “Who—who is it?” she stuttered.

“It’s Emma.”

Belle almost sobbed with relief.

“Are you okay Belle?” the sheriff asked.

Belle had to swallow. “Yeah. I’m fine!” Her bright voice sounded flat even to her ears.

The sheriff was quiet for a moment. “Can I come in?”

“No!” Belle quickly said. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. If Mr. Gold had been taken over and if he did come for her, she knew that nothing could stop him. Emma would only get hurt.

“Belle, I need you to let me in,” Emma said.

“I want to be left alone right now.”

Another pause. “Are you in danger?”

Belle felt a hysterical laugh bubble in her throat. She pushed it down. “No, I’m fine,” she lied.

“Is Mr. Gold dangerous?”

Not Mr. Gold, _never_ Mr. Gold.

The thing that had seized him? Emma had no clue just how dangerous it was.

Belle felt a hot tear trail down her cheek. “He’s fine, Emma,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Belle, you’re going to have to talk to me.”

No, Emma needed to leave. Now. It was too dangerous. Belle rubbed her tears away. “How about tomorrow morning?” By then, Belle expected either to be dead or to have saved Mr. Gold. Somehow. “We could meet in the Diner at 9:00. How does that sound?”

Yet another pause. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yup!” Tears were coursing down Belle’s cheeks. “Never better!”

“I’m going to be downstairs with Granny and Ruby. Okay? You just need to call, and we’ll come.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“We’ll be there,” Emma firmly said. “See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Belle repeated.

And Emma was gone.

Belle slumped to the ground. And wept.

xxx

Mr. Gold did not come for her that night.

Once Belle’s tears had run out, she’d sat there, staring at the door, hardly daring to breathe, and hating the gun in her hands. When the first rays of sunlight crept through the curtains, blinding her momentarily, she unsteadily got to her feet.

Why hadn’t he come for her? Was Mr. Gold still fighting it?

She didn’t dare hope.

But Rumpelstiltskin had managed to fight. Maybe Mr. Gold could, too?

_Rumpelstiltskin_.

She felt a spark in her weary soul at the name. She needed to go to the Dark Castle. Rumpelstiltskin would help her. Well, he’d either kill her or help her. But Belle had to believe the odds were in her favor.

She nearly laughed at herself. Escape from one demon by running to another. And to be in love with the both of them.

Sometimes life sucked that way.

Belle took several long breaths to steady herself, held the gun in both hands, and opened her door a crack.

So far.

She crept out of her room and down the stairs, grateful that she didn’t run into Granny or Ruby (or Emma, for that matter). She peered out the front door to Granny’s Inn, checking that the streets were empty, then dashed out, rushing to the safety of her car. She ripped the door open, dove in, and locked the doors with fumbling fingers.

Again. Nothing.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she started the car and drove through the sleepy town of Storybrooke.

She was so intent on getting up the windy forest path to the Dark Castle as quickly as possible that she failed to see the blue truck following behind.

xxx

Rumpelstiltskin cracked an eye when he heard something, something he thought he’d never hear ever again.

A car. An automatic, with a terrible grinding noise between gears and a wheezy complaint on each incline.

There was a second car, too, but he only had ears for the first.

“Belle,” he whispered.

He leapt to his feet, pine needles and leaves falling to the ground. How long had he been lying here? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t care. His Belle was coming.

He ran through the forest, ignoring the branches that snagged at his clothes and whipped against his face. When he broke through the trees into the clearing in front of the gate, he kept running, crashing into the gate, clinging to the iron and shivering at the burn on his skin.

Belle’s car came into view. He could see her face. He whimpered. He felt faint.

“Belle!” he cried, pressing himself harder against the gate, one hand aching to touch her cheek and see if it was as soft as he dreamed, the other rioting to close around her throat and squeeze.

She shouldn’t be here. He was too unstable, too dangerous. He couldn’t be human for her.

So why did seeing her fly out of her car and run toward him make his heart beat in the steady tattoo of the most human emotion of all?

“Rum!” she cried, pressing her arms through the bars, wrapping around him.

He held her trembling body as best he could. Their faces were pressed on either side of the iron, a scant inch away, and he breathed her in, so close, so near, so perfect, and with him again.

“You came back,” he choked out.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Belle whispered. “But I had nowhere else to go.”

Rumpelstiltskin backed up a space to see Belle’s white, tear-stained face. “Where’s Gold?” he demanded. That bloody human was supposed to help her! He’d promised!

“I don’t know what happened,” Belle said. “He—he’s changed.”

As she told her story, Rumpelstiltskin put his hands in front of him. He stared. Turned his hands this way and that.

They were half scaly green and half human.

But that was impossible.

He checked his forearms, his legs, his stomach—they were the same. How hadn’t he noticed? Had he been so dead to the world that he’d not felt the change?

Could it be that he was becoming…human?

Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes and dug deep into his core. No, not human. He was still faerie. Black. Chaotic. Dangerous. Deadly. That’s what he was. That’s what he’d always be.

So what was happening?

Rumpelstiltskin kept his eyes closed and searched for the black chain that linked Gold to him. He almost gasped at what he saw.

The black chain was there, but a second chain—a blue one—was wrapped around it, tight and strong. Rumpelstiltskin chased down this second chain. One end originated in Belle. The second end originated in a spot just to the right of where Rumpelstiltskin was standing.

He opened his eyes and looked to his right at the black brick column to the side of the gate, knowing what he’d see before he saw them.

Nine deals. Nine alcoves, each holding one item Belle had given to Rumpelstiltskin. The king’s coin. The wildflowers. Her dainty blue button. The loaf of bread, still fresh, and the cup of tea, still hot. The blue ribbon, the book, the pebble from her shoe, and—in the ninth, empty alcove—a kiss.

There was no question. Somehow, Belle’s nine gifts had been fused to the link shared between Rumpelstiltskin and Gold. Somehow, those nine items and Belle herself were now part of their shared curse.

What magic was this?

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t know, but he was slowly beginning to understand what had happened. The Dark One’s curse thrived on oaths. They were its lifeblood. So it _needed_ to kill Belle. But when it’d been unable to force Rumpelstiltskin to do it, it’d turned to Gold. Somehow it’d used Rumpelstiltskin’s nine precious treasures to slip through the iron gate and into the real world. Somehow it was using Belle herself to break the prison that had held it for over two centuries.

Rumpelstiltskin thought back to Belle’s story, about how Gold’s pinky had turned scaly green when he’d been threatening Gaston. At that moment, Gold had been more faerie than human, a creature willing to kill and glorying in its strength over the weak. Had that been the moment the curse had started to take hold, granting Gold the impossibly fast speed he’d needed to save Gaston’s life?

And then Gold had been dead—not completely dead, else Rumpelstiltskin would have faded—but dead enough that all his barriers had been down, his mind and soul open for the taking. It must have been only too easy for the curse to bind itself to him, holding him in limbo between life and death long enough for it to revive him with its black magic.

The one thing that most surprised Rumpelstiltskin was that Gold had managed to fight the curse at all once it’d taken over. It was a miracle he’d refrained from killing Belle right then and there. He’d been without magic for too long. It should have overtaken him completely.

The thought made Rumpelstiltskin shake. Did Belle understand how close she’d come to dying?

“What do we do?” Belle asked in a quiet voice.

_KILL HER!_

Rumpelstiltskin’s head was suddenly pounding with the ferocity of the voices inside. He gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t succumb. He couldn’t. Belle needed him. He wanted to make a deal with her to cool the hell inside him, like they’d done in the past, but he was afraid it would make the curse’s grasp on the real world even stronger. So his only option was to fight it. And hope he’d be strong enough.

“Rumple?” Belle whispered. “Are you still there?”

_She’s his! The oath! THE OATH!_

“Have you gone blind, dearie?” Rumpelstiltskin asked in a high voice, pretending he was fine, waving his hand in a flamboyant circle even as instinct was screaming at him to reach through the gate and close his fingers around her throat. “Of course I’m still here! I’m as there and here and neverwhere as ever!”

A small smile crossed her face. It made his chest warm up like sunlight.

“I’ve missed you,” Belle said in a quiet voice, resting her hand on his.

“Me too,” Rumpelstiltskin breathed, lifting a hand to brush her cheek.

His hand never made it.

“Well, well, well,” a voice said behind Belle. “Isn’t this a strange sight?”

“Gaston!” Belle gasped, spinning around.

Rumpelstiltskin remembered that name. He growled, flashing his teeth, and thrust a protective arm through the bars in front of Belle. The man raised something silver in his hand, pointing it at Rumpelstiltskin. Belle froze when she saw it. Was the silver object some kind of weapon?

“So there are two beasts of Storybrooke,” Gaston said. “Who would have imagined?”

“Gaston…” Belle carefully said.

The man rushed forward. Belle yelped and tried to scramble up and over the gate, Rumpelstiltskin trying to help her up, but he saw the man point the silver thing at Belle and squeeze his finger. There was a terrible, loud sound that ricocheted through the air, and Belle screamed. She fell to the ground, grasping the back of her calf. It was bleeding.

“Belle!” Rumpelstiltskin cried. He swiped his hand through the air and the gate swung open toward him, but by the time he’d dashed around it, Gaston was dragging Belle away.

“NO!” Rumpelstiltskin yelled, leaping forward.

It was like running into a glass panel. An electrified glass panel. Agonizing pain coursed through his veins, but Rumpelstiltskin ignored it.

“Belle!” he cried, throwing himself even harder against the invisible barrier, his vision sparking and swimming.

As Gaston dropped Belle to the ground, a good ten feet away from Rumpelstiltskin, Belle reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a black object, similar to the silver one Gaston was holding.

“Stay back!” she shouted at Gaston, perspiration on her forehead, her face white.

Gaston struck like a viper, kicking Belle’s hand and sending the black object hurtling away. She went diving for it, but Gaston got there first.

“You can’t even harm a fly, Belle babe,” Gaston said. “Did you really think you could shoot me?” He ran his eyes appreciatively over the black object, tucking his own silver one into the back of his pants. “Nice piece. Did Oldy Goldy give it to you?”

“Gaston, you don’t understand what you’re doing!” Belle stammered.

The man laughed. “Mr. Ugly Crocodile man over there—” he pointed to Rumpelstiltskin “—can’t cross that boundary, right? I watched the two of you long enough to guess that would happen. Looks like I was right.”

He walked toward Rumpelstiltskin, but Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t watching him. His eyes were on Belle. She was bleeding. She was in pain. And Rumpelstiltskin was helpless. He pushed and he pushed, but the barrier between the grounds of the Dark Castle and the real world was too strong, shooting jolt after jolt of searing pain through his body.

“Fascinating,” Gaston said, studying Rumpelstiltskin. “What are you?”

Rumpelstiltskin said nothing. _Belle_ , he whispered to himself. _Belle, I’m sorry. I’ve failed you. I’m sorry!_

Gaston moved back to Belle, pointing the black thing at her. “What are you?” he repeated.

“Get away from her,” Rumpelstiltskin growled.

“I’ll give you one more chance then I’m going to shoot Belle again.” Gaston’s voice was calm. “What are you?”

Belle winced, clinging to her bleeding calf even tighter.

Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyes to Gaston’s. “The Dark One,” he said in a low voice, nostrils flaring.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Gaston said, smiling. “Can you die?”

Rumpelstiltskin clamped his mouth closed.

Gaston pressed the black object against Belle’s temple. “I asked you a question, Dark One. Can you die?”

“Yes,” Rumpelstiltskin ground out.

“How?”

“The faerie needs the human to survive,” he said. “Kill the human, kill the faerie.”

“Which one is Gold?”

Rumpelstiltskin paused. He wasn’t sure any more.

“You are really, really trying my patience,” Gaston said, squeezing his finger around the black object. The loud, ricocheting sound erupted again, and the ground next to Belle’s other leg exploded in a shower of dirt.

“I’ll kill you!” Rumpelstiltskin shouted as Belle yelped. At least she didn’t look harmed this time. “I’ll kill you, you filthy—”

“Are these two always trying to kill someone?” Gaston asked Belle with a lazy smile. “First Mr. Gold tries to kill me, then he tries to kill you or whatever happened, and now this one’s trying to kill me. You have strange choice in men, Ms. French.” He turned back to Rumpelstiltskin and said in a loud voice, “The next bullet will hit Belle. Which one is Gold?”

“I don’t know!” Rumpelstiltskin cried. “He used to be the human, but I don’t know what he is now! I don’t know what _I_ am!”

“He’s telling the truth,” Belle said. “Something is changing. We don’t know what’s—”

“Shut up,” Gaston told Belle, turning back to Rumpelstiltskin. “Is Gold human enough to kill?”

Rumpelstiltskin dug inside himself once more. Yes, he was still faerie at the core. Did that mean Gold was still human at the core? If so, that would imply that Gold’s body wasn’t completely invincible. At least not yet. He was still too human.

Gaston dug the black object into Belle’s skin. “Is he human enough to kill?”

“Maybe,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “Probably.”

“Good enough,” Gaston said. “Give me your phone Belle.”

Belle fumbled in her pocket, pulling out a slim rectangular object. “What are you going to do?”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up, babe?” Gaston asked, grabbing the phone. He touched it a few times with his thumb then put it up to his ear.

Belle’s eyes widened. “No, Gaston!” She tried to get up, but her bleeding leg collapsed beneath her weight. “You can’t do this!”

“I really have no clue what’s going on,” Gaston said, the phone still on his ear. “And frankly, I could care less. But if there’s one thing I do know about Gold, it’s that he understands one thing very, very well.” He smirked. “Money.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showdown at the Dark Castle! (This is practically the FINAL chapter! All that's left is a fluffy epilogue. Thanks in advance to all who have followed and supported this story!)

Gold was at his cabin, on the floor, wrapped in on himself.

_You are Rumpelstiltskin_ , the voices said.

“I am Mr. Gold,” he intoned. His throat was rough.

 _You are the Dark One_.

“I am Mr. Gold!”

_You are in love with Belle French._

“Belle,” he moaned.

 _You must kill her_.

“I’m so sorry…”

_The oath must be fulfilled!_

“I’m so, so sorry,” he sobbed.

The image of Belle, white-faced and huddling against the wall in terror, in tears, as he advanced on her with a dagger-like shard of glass in his hand, was burned into his brain. He’d been so close to killing her. So. Close. And he had wanted to. He still wanted to.

Bile rose in Mr. Gold’s throat. He scampered on all fours to the corner of the room, barely making it there before vomiting what little remained in his stomach.

_If you would just accept us, if you would just let us take you, you’d be strong._

“Leave me alone,” Gold whimpered, laying his clammy face against the cool wooden floor. One of his hands was in front of him, scaly and green. Gold closed his eyes.

_You wouldn’t be a pathetic—_

“Stop,” he pled, hands pressing against his temples.

_—weak—_

“I’m not your servant!”

_—helpless—_

“I am Mr. Gold!”

_—coward._

This time, Gold’s voice was frail. “I am Mr. Gold…”

_No! You are mine!_

His cell phone rang, its dim light painting the dark room a faint shade of blue. Gold opened his eyes and lifted his heavy head. Belle’s name was on the screen.

_KILL HER!_

Gold clenched his teeth, his entire body shuddering from the effort of staying in control, as he reached over and tapped the intercom button.

“Belle,” he gasped. “Are you safe? You have the gun, right?”

“‘Not exactly’ to the first question,” a suave voice said, “and ‘no’ to the second. Incidentally, I’m the one holding the gun.”

It was Gaston.

Gold felt a surge of rage. He rose to his knees. “Where. Is. Belle?” he said, enunciating every word.

“Belle? She’s right here. Want to talk with her?” Gaston asked.

There was a shuffling sound then Belle’s voice filled Gold’s ear. “Mr. Gold! Don’t come! We’re—”

Her words cut off and Gaston returned. “Such a strange girl, isn’t she?”

“You dare harm a single hair on her head and I’ll—”

“Not this again,” Gaston said, cutting Gold off. “Seems like all you and—what did you say this one’s name was? Oh right, Rumpelstiltskin.”

Gold froze. How did Gaston know?

“Seems like all you and Rumpelstiltskin can do,” Gaston continued, “is threaten me. And since I’ve never been one who likes being left out, here’s my threat to you. Bring one million dollars cash within one hour. Or I’ll kill Belle.”

_Yes! YES!_

Gold’s head was spinning. His black talons were scratching at the floor, imagining themselves choking Belle. He was feeling sick again.

_THE OATH DEMANDS IT!_

“Are you still there?” Gaston asked.

“Yes,” Gold ground out. 

“One million dollars for Belle’s life. Do we have a deal?”

It took everything left in him to murmur, “Yes.”

“Excellent! I don’t believe I have to remind you of all people to come alone. Meet me where you keep your twin Rumpelstiltskin. You know where I mean?”

“The Dark Castle,” Gold whispered. 

“You have until 9:00,” Gaston said. “Tick tock. Tick tock.”

And he hung up.

 _She will die!_ the voices inside his head crowed. _Dead! Dead! Dead!_

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Gold growled.

_You don’t!_

Gold stumbled up and grabbed a crow bar from the closet. He collapsed back down to the floor, jammed the bar under one of the floorboards, and wrenched it up. Then another board. And another. As he went, he reached under the floor, pulling out stack after stack of plastic-wrapped bills.

_You’re ours!_

“Over my dead body,” Gold hissed as he levered another floorboard free. He’d have to make a run to the house as well to get enough cash. He could only hope he’d get to the Dark Castle in time. And, more importantly, with his mind intact.

If not, Gaston would be the least of Belle’s worries.

xxx

“How can you expect him to gather a million dollars in one hour?” Belle asked as they waited. She was clinging to her leg, trying to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t working. “No one has that much cash in—”

“Gold does,” Gaston said. “Word on the street is that he hoards all of the cash he gathers from rent like a dragon. No banks. No stock. Just hard, cold cash. Of course, no one’s been bold enough to test that theory and try to make a run against him.” He snorted. “The fact that Gold didn’t argue when I only gave him an hour proves it’s true. I should have asked for more.”

“Gaston, Gold isn’t himself right now. He’s dangerous and—”

Gaston pointed the gun at Belle and she closed her mouth. “Belle, babe,” he said, “one more word out of you and I might get dangerous myself.”

Belle glanced at Rumpelstiltskin. The faerie was breathing heavily, his eyes black and filled with rage. He watched Gaston’s every move like a caged tiger.

He was also changing, looking more and more human every second. His clothes were half business suit, half black leather with spikes. His face was entirely human except for the skin around his right eye and cheek. And his talons had turned to nails, short though still blackened.

Gaston had interrupted them before Rumpelstiltskin had had a chance to explain to her what was going on, but it looked like Rumpelstiltskin was becoming human. Did that mean Mr. Gold was losing his own humanity? Once he arrived, would nothing remain but whatever dark thing had taken over him in the Pawnshop?

Belle shivered at the thought, and Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes darted to her. His face instantly softened from the murderous glare he’d been giving Gaston to something Belle couldn’t quite name. His jaw became slack. His eyes—more brown now than black—burned with something stronger than hatred, and he pulled himself upright, standing straight. He was gripping the iron bars just as tightly as before, and his face was pressed against the metal just as forcefully, but there was something different to the strain this time. It wasn’t desperate and hostile.

It was longing.

Gaston laughed, and Belle snapped her head up to see that Gaston was watching the two of them.

“Are you in love with her, beast?” Gaston asked Rumpelstiltskin in a mocking voice.

Rumpelstiltskin flinched, and he ducked his face down. His hair—half curly, half straight—veiled his face, but Belle saw that his fists tightened around the bars. His shoulders were rigid.

“Do you really think she could ever care about someone—some _thing_ —like you?” Gaston asked.

“Gaston, stop,” Belle said.

“You’re not even human!” he said.

Rumpelstiltskin’s face whipped up. His eyes were black again. “What does it mean to be human?” he asked in a low yet painfully sincere voice. “What is ‘human’? Is it species? Is it mind? Is it heart? As far as I’m concerned, there are two monsters here. Not one.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s head suddenly cocked to the side as though he were listening to something. His eyes glazed over. He took a small, instinctive step back.

“And you’ve just invited a beast far more monstrous than either of us to the party.”

“What do you mean?” Gaston asked.

And then Belle heard it: a car.

Gaston raced over to Belle and yanked her to her feet. Belle cried out as she was forced to stand on her leg, pain assaulting her senses. She felt faint.

“Stay on your feet,” Gaston hissed as he held her tightly in front of him and pressed the gun to her side. He checked his watch. It was 8:43. “Looks like Oldy Goldy’s early.”

It took Mr. Gold’s black car several seconds to come into sight. The car parked next to Belle’s. The engine turned off. And the door cracked open.

“Well, isn’t this convenient?” a high, shrill voice said.

Belle felt a punch of panic when a figure rose from the car, a figure with green scaly skin all over and a maniacal grin. His reptilian eyes met Belle’s.

“Did you miss us, dearie?”

And he giggled.

xxx

Belle looked terrible. Her face was white. Her leg was bleeding.

 _YES!_ the voices cried, and Gold felt his legs move himself forward with birdlike, dancing steps.

“Stop!” Gaston ordered, pushing the gun into Belle’s rips. “Don’t come any closer!”

 _You should be the one to kill her!_ the voices said, practically salivating with glee. _Kill the boy! Then you can kill her yourself!_

Gold’s hand raised, ready to summon black magic to rip Gaston away.

 _No!_ Gold thought, fighting against the urge. The more magic he used, the more powerful the curse got. He was barely in control as it was. If he used any magic, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop himself from killing Belle.

_DO IT!_

Gold clenched his fists even as he heard an inhuman, trilling laugh tear from his throat.

“That’s not much of a threat, now is it, dearie?” Gold heard himself say. “The girl means nothing to us. You’d do us a favor by killing her!”

The iron gate clanged as Rumpelstiltskin threw himself against it. Gold ignored him.

Gaston hesitated. “You’re bluffing.”

“Bluffing! Us?” Gold’s mouth opened in mock offense as his hand rested on his chest. “We be nothing but complet-uh-lee truth-ee true-tee!”

The curse ordered Gold to move forward, and his left leg lifted without his consent. Gold clenched his teeth and forcefully locked his legs.

_SHE’S THERE! HER BLOOD! SMELL IT! CRAVE IT!_

Gold was screaming inside, but on the outside, he was grinning the grin of the demented faerie.

And Belle—oh Belle! Her blue eyes, feverish with pain, were searching for him, pleading for him to still be there behind the mask.

 _I’m here, Belle!_ he wanted to cry. _I’m here!_

 _Not for long!_ the voices howled, and Gold felt his right leg flex forward.

“Do you have my money?” Gaston asked, his voice firm though Gold could hear the tremor in it. Gaston was afraid. And he had every right to be.

“Yes,” Gold fought to say, lifting the briefcase of money in his left hand. “Give me Belle and—”

_YES! YES!_

“—and—”

_SHE’S OURS!_

“—and she’s ours,” Gold hissed. He took one dancing step forward. Then another. He let a giggle boil out of his mouth, and he reveled in its chaos. “Tittle-hee-hee-hee!” He grinned. “Belle soon be bloody-bee-dee!”

“Don’t come any closer!” Gaston shouted, pointing the gun at Gold then Belle then back at Gold again.

“And the funny boy!” Gold said. “Tittle-hee-hee-hee! He sooner be dead than she, hee-dee-hee-hee!”

“Stop!” Gaston yelled, the gun pointing firmly at Gold and only Gold.

Gold’s grin widened. He lifted his hand, ready to kill the annoying boy, and the gun went off.

The voices screamed as the iron bullet tore through the skin of Gold’s shoulder and lodged there, dumping the poisonous metal into his bloodstream and spreading like a plague.

“Belle!” Gold cried, surfacing from the curse’s hold, savoring the sweet, searing sting of the iron as it chased the curse away. He stretched a hand out toward her, and he saw human skin rushing to take over the scaly green.

“Mr. Gold!” Belle shouted.

She whipped an elbow back and managed to strike Gaston square in the face. Gaston lifted his hands to his bleeding nose, and Belle took the opportunity to tear herself out of his grip, racing forward, racing toward Gold.

It took Gaston a second to process what had happened. And then he lifted his gun, aiming it at Belle.

“No, Belle!” Gold cried.

And Gaston squeezed the trigger.

xxx

Rumpelstiltskin’s entire body was on fire. The curse was fleeing the iron in Gold’s body, pouring back into Rumpelstiltskin’s, and he felt his heart racing impossibly fast as scaly green skin charged over his body once more, erasing every hint of humanity.

 _KILL HER!_ the voices screamed. _SHE’S OURS!_

Rumpelstiltskin yelled out loud as raging, black power surged through his bloodstream. He heard manic laughter in his head, a legion of howling damned voices. There was nothing but chaos and death and destruction in his mind. He felt a giggle start to build, a giggle of madness and surrender and thirst and need and—

“No, Belle!”

And Rumpelstiltskin returned to himself.

He saw a very human Gold on the ground, bleeding from a wound in his shoulder, hand outstretched, face panicked. And running toward Gold was Rumpelstiltskin’s light, his life, his meaning.

His Belle.

She was stumbling forward on her damaged leg. Toward Gold. Not toward Rumpelstiltskin—never toward him—but to Gold.

As it should be.

And then Rumpelstiltskin saw what Gold had seen: Gaston, pointing his metal object—the thing he’d called a gun—directly at Belle’s back, anger contorting his face and blood gushing out of his nose.

Rumpelstiltskin had to save her! He had to get free from his prison!

Time slowed to a crawl as he closed his eyes, diving into the chaos within him and finding the black chain binding Gold to him. Woven around it was the blue chain, with one end tied to Belle and the other to the nine precious gifts she’d given to him.

With a wave of his hand, all nine items flew through the air in front of him, in front of the iron gate, and Rumpelstiltskin pushed with them against the barrier.

 _NO! LET HER DIE!_ the voices howled.

He pushed harder. The bread was disintegrating. The ribbon was unraveling thread by thread. The coin was melting. The bars started to shake but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. He needed more!

Rumpelstiltskin opened his eyes and saw Gaston’s finger tighten. He saw a flash of light from the end of the gun. He could see a bullet explode forth, flying directly at Belle—all in painfully slow motion.

“No!” he screamed.

In desperation, Rumpelstiltskin grabbed at his own core essence—the curse itself—and threw it against the iron gate alongside Belle’s nine items.

 _STOP! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!_ the curse shrieked as the iron started to burn through it like fire on gasoline.

Rumpelstiltskin threw more of the black might within him against the gate. The bars buckled.

The bullet was halfway to Belle.

 _I am your slave no more!_ Rumpelstiltskin snarled as he fought the hell within him.

_NO! YOU’RE OURS!_

_I am not yours!_ he screamed. _I’m Belle’s!_

 _You will be weak! Powerless!_ the voices howled.

 _With her, I am strong!_ Rumpelstiltskin cried. _Stronger than I ever was with you!_

Then Rumpelstiltskin threw every last drop of the Dark One’s mighty curse against the gate in an explosive wave. It burst open, and the barrier that had kept him hostage for two hundred years and forty-nine days melted away like butter before fire.

Without thinking, Rumpelstiltskin transported himself directly behind Belle, directly in the path of the bullet.

It struck him in his heart. A blast of toxic iron.

Rumpelstiltskin’s first thought was how strange it was that he’d been hit by the bullet before the sound of the deafening gunshot had reached his ears.

And then it was the agony of iron flooding through his system, burning every cell in his body. Rumpelstiltskin could hear the curse screeching in his mind, cursing and biting. And fading.

Rumpelstiltskin smiled, stumbling backward.

“I,” he breathed out loud, falling to his knees, “am stronger.”

xxx

Belle heard the gunshot and spun around, only to see Rumpelstiltskin directly behind her on his knees, a bullet hole in the dead center of his chest.

“No!” she cried.

Gaston looked stunned, and before he could do anything else, Mr. Gold appeared next to Belle and grabbed Rumpelstiltskin’s hand, raising it and his own to point in Gaston’s direction. Immediately, Gaston was hurled against a tree as though an invisible giant’s hand had struck him, and he fell to the ground in a limp heap.

There was silence. Then,

“Now what did we do that for?” Rumpelstiltskin asked in a high, shrill voice.

“Rumple?” Belle said in a quiet voice as Mr. Gold turned his head sharply to look at the faerie, throwing a protective arm in front of her.

Was Rumpelstiltskin going to try to kill them now? Was the curse in control? Would he—

“We should have turned him into a snail!” Rumpelstiltskin explained. “Not blasted him against a tree! No style points whatsoever, Gold!”

A small, relieved laugh burst from Belle’s mouth, and Mr. Gold’s arm lowered.

“Yes, we should have,” Belle said, smiling. “Just like Frakkashaka of the Far North.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s return smile took on a tinge of sadness. “Just so.”

And with that, he started to fall backward.

“Rumple!” Belle cried, rushing forward and managing to catch him before he hit the ground.

His skin had lost its golden sheen. It was now a blackish green, and there was black blood soaking his shirt.

No, no! He had to be fine! He was an immortal faerie! Mr. Gold had been hit by a car, he’d died, and he was still alive!

So why wasn’t the wound on Rumpelstiltskin’s chest healing?

“I used the—” Rumpelstiltskin covered his mouth and coughed. There was black blood on his hand when he removed it. “I had to use your gifts, Belle, to get through the gate, the same way the curse did to get to Gold. I’m sorry, Belle. Your book. It was destroyed. And the tea cup and the bread and—”

“That’s fine,” Belle said, smiling as she brushed her hand through his wavy hair. “You’re here. That’s all that matters. You saved my life. We’ll have new deals, new gifts.”

“What about the curse?” Gold asked from behind her.

“Had to burn through that too,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “There’s very little left. Especially with the iron. The poison’s spreading, taking care of the rest.”

Belle looked at the gaping black hole in Rumpelstiltskin’s chest where the iron bullet had struck. Any normal human would already be dead.

But Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t human. He would heal. He had to!

“That wound’s not so bad,” she lied, unable to see very clearly through the tears in her eyes. “You’re going to be just fine. We’ll take out the bullet and—”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes widened. “No! Leave it!”

“But—”

“The curse, it’s not gone. It’s fighting to keep living. If I let it, it will grow strong again. If I don’t resist, if I let it heal me, you will never escape its demand.” Rumpelstiltskin looked up at Mr. Gold. “It will never give up until Belle is dead. We can’t—” He coughed. “We can’t let that happen.”

“What are you saying?” Belle asked.

Rumpelstiltskin and Mr. Gold shared a look. Finally, Mr. Gold nodded.

“If he lets the iron weaken the remainder of the curse,” Mr. Gold explained, “he can take it with him when he dies. The curse will die with him.”

“Die?” Belle repeated, the word catching in her throat. “But—Rumple, no!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes looked past Belle to Mr. Gold. “I’m sorry. About Bae. I couldn’t be what I needed to be for him, for you.”

Mr. Gold was silent.

“I don’t expect your forgiveness—I never have nor ever will,” Rumpelstiltskin continued. “But I want you to know that I wish…I wish things had been different.”

There were tears in Mr. Gold’s eyes. He nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. “If only they had.”

Rumpelstiltskin glanced at Belle then back to Gold. “Take care of her. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Mr. Gold said.

“Love her as I could not,” Rumpelstiltskin said, his voice weak.

“Rumple, no!” Belle sobbed. “You can’t—I can’t—”

Rumpelstiltskin stretched out a trembling hand and placed it over the wound in Belle’s thigh. She felt a funny tingling sensation, and when he lifted his hand, she saw that it’d been healed.

“Now heal yourself,” Belle begged as he slumped back, eyes fluttering weakly. She grabbed his hand and placed it over his own heart. “Please, Rumple! Heal yourself!”

A small smile pulled at his lips as he weakly shook his head. “It’s better this way. At least I got to see you one last time.”

“No.” Belle had to wipe the tears out of her eyes to see him. “Don’t talk like that! You’ll be all right. We’re together now. All three of us! Everything’s going to be better now. You’ll see.”

“As long as I’m alive, you’re not free. He’s not free.” Rumpelstiltskin nodded to Mr. Gold. “You both deserve to live your lives, Belle. And you can’t do that with me.” He gave a wincing smile. “I’m faerie folk. I don’t belong.”

“Please,” Belle pled, her throat and chest tight. “Don’t leave me!”

“I’m not leaving you. Remember, Gold and I. We’re one.”

“Two sides,” Mr. Gold whispered, kneeling beside Belle. “One coin.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes closed. “Yes. One coin.” His smile widened. It looked complete, whole, the most content expression Belle had ever seen on his face. “There be no me—”

“—just we,” Mr. Gold finished for him in a quiet voice. He cleared his throat. “Tell Bae—” He broke off. “Tell Bae I love him.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes opened once more. A single tear rolled down the faerie’s cheek. “I will. And I won’t mess up this time, Gold.” He swallowed. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Mr. Gold said.

“I’d expect nothing else,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

Then his eyes returned to Belle’s, and he reached up, cradling her cheek with his scaly hand. She leaned into it, unable to speak.

“Thank you, Belle,” he whispered, “for doing the impossible. For teaching a faerie what it was like.”

“How what was like?”

“To love.” He closed his eyes, his voice hardly a whisper. “To be loved.” His hand slipped from her cheek. “To be…human.”

His hand fell to the ground. And Rumpelstiltskin grew still.

“No,” Belle sobbed. “No, please! Don’t leave me!”

She clung to his leather coat, shaking him.

“You can’t go!”

His body was limp in her arms.

“You can’t!” Her voice broke on the words. “I love you.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips against his. And, starting from her touch, Rumpelstiltskin transformed. His lips turned red. His blackish green scaly skin disappeared, turning into the skin of a human. And his black talons became fingernails. The only thing that remained was his curly hair and leather clothes.

Belle held her breath, hoping against hopes that his chest would start rising once more.

It didn’t.

Rumpelstiltskin—the Dark One, the most powerful creature in all seven realms, the keeper of the gates of hell, the master of all those bound to dark magic, of the fallen, of the desperate souls of those once man, the bringer of chaos and destruction, and (Belle let out a sob) her love—was dead, a smile of perfect peace on his face.

He was gone.

“You made him human,” Mr. Gold said, his voice reverent under the growing light of the sun.

“No,” Belle said, thinking about what Rumpelstiltskin had said to Gaston.

_What is ‘human’? Is it species? Is it mind? Is it heart?_

It was sacrifice.

“He already _was_ human.” Belle ran a hand down Rumpelstiltskin’s human-toned cheek. She kissed it then whispered in his ear, “As both faerie and human, Rumpelstiltskin, I loved you.”

She gave him a final kiss, her tears falling upon his new skin as she pulled back.

“I will always love you.”

She knelt there in the bloody dirt, Mr. Gold at her side, and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the prompt I was filling (from westcoastmalone): Belle didn’t believe in goblins or fairies, at least not the creatures themselves, but She is sure though that there is something that is guarding Caislean Dorcha (dark castle) though, even if it’s just a disgruntled groundskeeper. The local Pawn Shop and land owner though, Mr. Gold, keeps trying to warn his young employee though, and with good reason. Centuries ago, Robert Gold was able to banish his half faerie nature, but sadly it decided to hang around. Sealed within the abandoned castle, where his former self imprisioned him forever, Rumplestilskin is bored, cranky, and tired of the bond he is forced to share with the mortal that banished him. However, when pretty Belle French comes to investigate the rumours, he finds himself finally sharing something with Gold; a certain fondness for the girl.


End file.
